Team helps Soap Lake find spa partners

$3 million project could bring in additional interest

SOAP LAKE — The search is under way for partners to assist and operate what revitalization team members call the "heart" of economic resurgence in Soap Lake.

The team is assisting the city in gathering funding sources to build the Soap Lake Spa and Wellness Center.

Requests for proposals have been sent out to potential private partners for spa, with letters for interviews due back Nov. 10. Interviews by phone or in person start Nov. 28.

Revitalization team members Fredrick Slough and Terry Brewer say the center would utilize Soap Lake's lake, which brings people in for a short season, and create a business year-round.

"If we can create a use of the water, an inside facility so that people can stay in the hotels all year round, then they're going to go out and shop," Slough said. "They're going to use the restaurants and the economy is going to blossom because of the winter business it'll add to our summer business."

The city of Soap Lake is the applicant for job development fund money, Brewer explained, noting the funding is available to municipalities and not the private sector. The city can own the infrastructure, receiving money from the state to pay for it.

The revitalization team provides volunteer assistance for the city, Slough said, noting the group wrote the grant application, met with feasibility study groups and helped with consensus development.

The project, in its early development stage, received a commitment for grant funding as part of the state's job development fund program and an early commitment from the state's Community Economic Revitalization Board for $1 million, Brewer said. The commitment goes before the state Legislature in early 2007 for final approval.

"The program requires a $2 for $1 state money match, so we're hoping to find a private sector developer to come in with at least $2 million to match what the state has provided," he said.

The partnership includes the city's ownership of the infrastructure — the spa and the land it sits upon — while the partner finishes it and works as operator of the business in a lease arrangement that could turn into a purchase 10 years down the road.

"Additional funding is required and needed," Brewer said. "The city doesn't have the $2 million to put with it. An attractive proposal, though, when a developer comes in and one-third of this is being paid for by grant money."

The site, located in the center of the downtown Soap Lake area, includes adjacent vacant land for a hotel development, with team members anticipating developers would not be content to just build and operate a spa, Brewer said.

Slough said federal sources of income could be found to match the grant, but that would leave the facility without an operator.

The project would add 134 jobs over a five-year period, he added.

"We really feel that if someone comes in, invests their money and they know the spa business, they're going to do a better job with it than what we could hire, say, if the city wanted to be the management group," Slough said.

The revitalization team, in partnership with the City of Soap Lake, hopes to attract developers and receive proposals back.

"We're expanding (the search) as widely as we can afford to," Slough said. "We have networked everybody that's ever been involved with Soap Lake and development ideas and stuff, which has brought quite a few people into the loop."

Brewer said the team is looking from Southern California to the Northwest. The spa project might not be right for a company, he added, but something else in the community could be.

"The whole town is involved in asking for a partner to come in and build this resort in our town," Slough said.

He pointed to volunteer revitalization teams developed in 2003 and the city's downtown master plan, developed in 2005.

"I think that's one of the neatest things about our situation," he added.