Tampa Bay swim team wants to help pay to open John H. Marble Pool year round

MANATEE -- Due to the shortage of pools in Manatee County, East Manatee resident Christine Walker drives her two children to Tampa for competitive swimming twice a week.

Walker, the assistant swim coach at Braden River High School, felt that there weren't enough options for her children within the county.

"We joined with Pipeline even though there is not a pool in the area," Walker said. "That's how desperate we are."

Pipeline Swimming, a for-profit organization that started more than four years ago, is looking to provide more options for Manatee County swimmers.

"With our team growing and the respect we have gained through the swimming community, we have had about 35 families reach out to us in the Bradenton area to put one of our teams in Bradenton," said Patrick Piper, co-owner of Pipeline Swimming.

With established swim teams in Tampa and New Port Richey, Piper wants to bring a swim team to John H. Marble Pool, 3675 53rd Ave. E., Bradenton. To allow the pool to be open year round, Piper said Pipeline Swimming is offering to pay for pool heaters and their installation, in addition to paying rent to the county to help cover the cost to run chemicals in the pool. Piper said he has even offered to split the cost of lights and paying to install them.

"No matter how much I've asked I'm told, 'It's too expensive and can't do it,'" Piper said. "For whatever reason, the county doesn't want us in the pool."

John H. Marble Pool year-round?

Pipeline Swimming's proposal to make the pool the second heated county pool to be open year-round is not the first one the county has received. In 2013, the county received another proposal from the Sarasota Swim Academy head coach to operate the pool year-round, but the proposal stalled due to the high cost of equipment and staffing.

Charlie Hunsicker, the county's park and natural resources department director, said Pipeline's proposal would require adding two full-time positions to manage the additional hours of operation at Marble Pool.

"We have to pay our own staff to be there," he said. "That can be fairly expensive."

There is a stark contrast in what Pipeline has discussed with the county and actual costs, Hunsicker said.

"We are still fairly far apart with what would be required in payment and what has been discussed in willingness to pay," he said.

Due to staffing costs and insurance, Piper said they've been told no, which "became extremely frustrating."

"I've offered pretty much everything to help fund this project, if not the majority of this project," Piper said.

Piper argues the county doesn't need lifeguards at the pool as the team would have two coaches at the pool.

"Unfortunately, it always comes back that it is going to be too expensive for Pipeline to be there and do that," Piper said.

At Pipeline Swimming, Piper said they want to make sure there is a place for everybody.

"It's about the kids. It's not about us," Piper said. "We are not a rich team, but I am willing to invest in the community. We are not looking to go anywhere. We are looking to invest in the county."

About three weeks ago, Marble Pool closed when the "pool temperatures fell below tolerable levels for team and recreational use," Hunsicker said, adding that the pool will reopen in the spring. Three years ago, the county was proposing to close the pool altogether. There has since been about a 200 percent increase in attendance, Hunsicker said.

"The Pipeline team proposal is developed to gain hours of use at a heated pool facility so that year-round practices and continuity for the swimmers can be achieved at the county facility," Hunsicker said. "At G.T. Bray, the county's only year-round heated pool, there are many competing users that have taken up most of the hours of the day available for practice sessions already."

A significant issue is that there are probably other teams interested in doing the same thing at Marble Pool, Hunsicker said.

"Before we could entertain a business partnership with Pipeline swim team, we would have to make this business partnership opportunity available to any individual or organization through a request for proposals," he said.

But before they go through a request for proposals, Hunsicker said the county needs to be prepared to "honor that effort with funding the outcome."

"If we are not prepared to fund the construction and maintenance of such a facility, we should not begin the process," he said.

With the inability to fund additional positions in the realm of public safety in this year's budget, Hunsicker said he would have difficulty "rising above that and requesting of the administration and the board for this purpose."

"They are laser pointed on their needs and priorities and it is difficult to step back and recognize that there are other more pressing needs throughout the community," he said. "As we work through the next several years in building revenue for the construction and with the support of the board, staffing, we will let no dust gather such a proposal. At this moment in our budget history and looking ahead into the next year, over the short term, there is insufficient funding."

Option of G.T. Bray Pool

With a closed Marble Pool, there are still options available in Manatee County for Pipeline Swimming to have heated pool use, Hunsicker said.

"That doesn't close the Pipeline team out of hours of heated pool use," he said. "We do have right now available hours in the evening for this team to practice at G.T. Bray facility, but it's going to be expensive because it's outside of hours of normal operation. It's going to require us having employees there. It's going to be expensive, but it's available."

But Piper said an advantage of Marble Pool is the location.

G.T. Bray is "not conducive to people living east of the freeway," Piper said. "If we limit ourselves to the G.T. Bray location, we are basically telling a group of kids, 'Hey, listen sorry.' That's a downside for them because we don't give them access to what we are trying to access."

Walker agrees that the Marble Pool is in "a great location."

"It's very easy to go to," she said. "Location-wise it just makes a lot of sense for us. ...There's not one reason why we shouldn't be swimming at John Marble right now."

An open Marble Pool would solve a lot of the problems, Walker said.

"There would be a lot of growth with young swimmers," she said. "It would add a lot to the community, fill a huge void and the pool is already there."

Lack north of Manatee River

With no county pools located in north county and only one heated county pool open year-round, commissioners have reiterated their commitment into locating the next county pool north of the river.

"We made a commitment," Commissioner John Chappie said. "If we are going to build a new pool, my priority is with you guys, north of the river. We, as a commission, made that commitment. ... The north side of the river has been neglected and there is a tremendous amount of growth there."

Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said at the Nov. 3 meeting that a pool is needed for the children of Palmetto and Rubonia.

"That is something that we need to move forward with as soon as we financially can," Baugh said. "That is something that we need to be looking at."

As the county updates its impact fee schedule, TischlerBise, the consultant hired by the county commission and Manatee County School Board to do an impact fee study, looked at the county's parks impact fee. According to the study, Manatee County will need $23.2 million worth of improvements to accommodate new development over 10 years, which includes $1.2 million for aquatic facilities.

While new pools can be built using impact fees, the operational expenses of the facilities can't be paid for with the impact fees, according to Hunsicker.

By the end of 2016, Manatee County is expected to have a Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Master Plan, which will assess needs and recommend priorities as a way to meet changing and future demographic needs, according to the county's request for proposals.

Hunsicker said the county knows where the deficiencies lie, but it is more a question of where and when, which is how the master plan will help.

"I don't need a master plan to tell us we need another pool preferably north of the Manatee River to service folks there," he said. "I don't require a master plan to tell me to light two additional soccer fields at Lakewood Ranch Park or that we need a master plan to turn existing pool utilization from seven months to 12. We already feel the pressure and know the demands for such things are there. We won't need a master plan to tell us those things."

In Manatee County, there is an underground movement of swimmers, coaches and swim teams who all agree that there is a shortage of pools in the county, Walker said.

"We all need more space as a whole," she said. "We have such an underdeveloped swimming situation. I would call it a crisis. We have some of the best top athletes in the U.S., but no facilities to facilitate big competitions. Yet everybody in the country wants to come down here and train. If they built a pool, the pool would be used year-round by local, national and international teams."

Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024. Follow her on Twitter@Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Tampa Bay swim team wants to help pay to open John H. Marble Pool year round ."