Proposed Swimming Pool is Deep-Sixed

By DONALD WITTKOWSKI You'll need your workout clothes, but not your bathing suit. Sea Isle City is moving ahead with plans to redevelop the old public school site into a community recreation center, but the facility will not include an indoor swimming pool following overwhelming taxpayer opposition to that part of the project. City Council approved a resolution Tuesday directing Mayor Leonard Desiderio’s administration to proceed with the recreation center, minus the pool. The city conducted an online survey to gauge community sentiment for a pool as a prelude to redeveloping the former school at 4501 Park Road into a public recreation facility. In the survey, 76.2 percent of the respondents voted against the pool, while 23.8 percent were in support. In all, there were 2,552 votes, the city announced. Separately, the city included a nonbinding referendum on the Election Day ballot asking local residents whether they supported the pool. The vote was 489 against the pool and 386 in favor. Sea Isle property owners who were not eligible to vote in the election were given an opportunity to voice their preference in the online community survey about the pool. City officials said they wanted to give a voice to all taxpayers before any decisions were made about the proposed project. Council President J.B. Feeley said the results of the referendum and online survey made it “pretty obvious” whether or not taxpayers wanted to pay for the pool or would even use it. City Council President J.B. Feeley, left, and City Business Administrator George Savastano talk after the Council meeting. Previously, the city had estimated a recreation center with a pool would cost between $17 million and $20 million, plus an additional $500,000 to $1 million annually to maintain and staff the new facility. Feeley said during the Council meeting that the city will now move forward with preliminary plans for a recreation center without a pool. He pledged that the public will be closely involved with the city in the design and planning of the project. The city is in the process of developing its five-year capital plan, a sweeping blueprint for construction projects and infrastructure improvements throughout town. The capital plan will include $1 million in proposed funding in 2020 to design the recreation center and $12 million in 2021 to build it, City Business Administrator George Savastano said in an interview after the Council meeting. If all goes as planned, the recreation center would open in late 2022, Savastano said. “We have a lot of steps to go through,” he said of the funding approvals, designs and construction for the project. For more than a year, Sea Isle officials have been discussing the redevelopment of the old school into a recreation facility. The school, which closed in 2012 due to Sea Isle’s declining student population, occupies the entire block bordered by Park Road, Central Avenue, 45th Street and 46th Street. Sea Isle City Public School was built in 1971 and closed in 2012 due to declining student enrollment. (Photo courtesy of Sea Isle City Historical Society and Museum) One option that has been considered is to renovate the school building into a modest recreation center costing $2 million. Feeley, however, said city officials prefer demolishing the school and redeveloping the site for a new recreation center. The main question regarding whether the center should include an indoor pool has been settled following the results of the referendum and online survey. Earlier estimates pegged the cost of a recreation center without a pool at between $13 million and $16 million. Savastano, though, said Tuesday the construction cost is expected to be $12 million. During a public presentation on the project in June, Savastano said a recreation center with a pool would have added between $300 and $400 in local taxes on an annual basis for a home assessed at $700,000. A recreation center with no pool would add $100 to $200 in additional local taxes per year on the same house, he said.