Aquatic center could be expanded

Lazy river, surfing experience part of addition proposal

MOSES LAKE — One of the improvements officials will soon be proposing to the Moses Lake City Council could bring boogie boards, and a near-surfing experience, to the city's aquatic center.

Ever since the Moses Lake Family Aquatic Center opened 11 years ago, Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Grigg said discussions have centered around adding another phase to the center. And after visiting a system this summer at the Mitchell Pool in Great Falls, Mont., Grigg has presented a similar system to the City of Moses Lake.

The current proposal would include a FlowRider near-surfing experience wave and deep flow channel slide, surrounded by a quarter-mile lazy river. The facility Grigg and a city delegation looked at in Montana also utilized a deck area for events around the water system.

"It's really three for the price of one," Grigg said of the proposed enhancements.

The FlowRider facility would be one of a handful in the United States if approved, and a construction spot has been proposed between the current aquatic center and the bathhouse remaining from the former Swedberg Pool.

City Councilman Dick Deane went with Grigg and other city officials to see the pool in Montana, and said the addition could bring more people to the already popular aquatic center. Deane said cities are told to find their niche, and Moses Lake's niche is a "tourism center for athletic activities." The addition, he said, would also bring more middle or high school students to the center, a demographic that hasn't seen as high an attendance rate as other groups.

"It's going to capture the imagination of a kid who's a middle school or high school kid," Deane said.

Deane said the waves of the FlowRider allowed participants to kneeboard in a safe environment and likened the boogie boarding of the FlowRider to the old spillway in Moses Lake he grew up swimming in, or a roller coaster.

"To me, it was similar to a roller coaster, but I was in charge of it," Deane said.

With additions of the lazy river, FlowRider and deep flow channel slide, Grigg said the three would share the same circulation water and filtration system. While the plan is still in the early phases, Grigg called the possibility of the addition an exciting concept. He likened proposed construction of the addition to construction of the aquatic center itself, and said city officials would take their time on the project to do it right.

"It took a little bit of time to get it done," Grigg said of the aquatic center, "but we're really happy with the existing results."

Grigg said other facilities, like the Mitchell Pool in Montana, have let boarders ride the wave over a high-density foam surface for 30 seconds at a time. That 30 seconds is a long time, Grigg said, even for riders who have perfected the event. After riding the wave, riders are taken down a deep flow channel into the lazy river, a channel Deane said reminded him of a class 1 river rapid.

Grigg said other facilities that have installed the systems have had different admission packages, depending on which part of the pool was accessed. He said that by looking at other facilities that have installed the FlowRider system, increased attendance would help pay for increased operation and maintenance expenses at the facilities.

"I think the lowest increase in admissions for those facilities that added these was 25 percent," Grigg said.

The proposal has been unanimously approved by both the city's parks and recreation and tourism commissions, and a proposal is planned to soon also go before the city council. The FlowRider plan is one item City Manager Joe Gavinski said will be presented to council members when they go over preliminary budgets later this year. City officials have ball parked a figure to construct the addition at $2 million, a cost Gavinski said could be financed through hotel and motel taxes generated by tourists to the area.

And the aquatic center has seen its fair share of visitors; tallies done of aquatic center admissions show more than 80 percent of the visitors to the aquatic center during the last weeks of the season have been from outside of Moses Lake. Grigg said he is amazed at how far reaching the aquatic center is, with visitors from throughout Washington and as far away as the east cost of the United States visiting the facility. But both Deane and Grigg said that while the facility can be financed with tourists dollars, it will be built for locals.

"It's for Moses Lake people," Deane said, "but the people who come from out of town to use it will actually pay for the darn thing."