City of Port Townsend considering building new health and wellness center

The city of Port Townsend has submitted a “request for qualifications” for the possible construction of a new wellbeing and wellness middle.

The ask for is for a consultant to offer the city with facts on concept organizing, design solutions, and neighborhood engagement for input on the probable new facility. Specifics involve the location, an aquatics component, and financial and procedure strategies for the centre.

Whilst information on the possible charge of the project, the upcoming of Mountain Check out Pool, and other aspects have still to be shared, the city will collect much much more information and facts via responses to the request.

Officially titled the Port Townsend More healthy Jointly Group Overall health and Wellness Centre, the have to have for the new facility facilities close to the millions of dollars utilised in the latest decades to sustain and repair Port Townsend’s main recreation center, the Mountain See Commons on Blaine Street.

The function of this project is, “to give long-term infrastructure and prospects for strengthening local community wellbeing and wellness by creating on earlier collaborative attempts and meeting the evolving needs of our community,” a segment of city paperwork reads.

Options for the home are even now preliminary, as the metropolis is in the very first section of organizing, which entails examining present info and recent disorders, forming concentrate groups, and starting up economic planning.

PROBLEMATIC POOL

When this isn’t the initially time the metropolis has regarded as building a new health, wellness, and aquatics facility, the most important reasoning for the new heart pivots around the degenerating state of Mountain View Pool’s infrastructure above the previous 10 or so many years, according to city documents.

“The current Mountain Check out Pool, circa 1963, is past its useful lifetime and is being operated and preserved by the metropolis and the [YMCA of Jefferson County],” according to an eight-website page define of the job. “The metropolis proceeds to spend in the pool to increase its practical everyday living, but this will not continue on to be ample for ideal, up-to-day requires and the advancement of the group in east Jefferson County.”

Considering that 2001, the town and partnering businesses have manufactured various repairs to Mountain Look at and tried pool facility updates and plans for a new middle.

Metropolis designs for a new well being and wellness centre from 2008, 2013, and 2016 fell through, but now city officers are stressing that the consistent upkeep expenditures for Mountain Watch Pool are inefficient in the lengthy run, and a new facility is unavoidable.

“The existing pool is in bad problem and is on its final legs,” observed a report on the project on the city’s website. “To continue on endeavours and funding to retain the Mountain Watch Pool operational is not a prudent use of city cash.”

A NEW FACILITY

Although a new facility has been mentioned by local and city officers for a long time, the spark plug for the plan a short while ago came right after a local community wellness evaluation from the town, Jefferson Health care, and Jefferson General public Health and fitness in 2019. The assessment incorporated a robust group input approach and stated bodily activity and health complications as two of the prime five difficulties to the area local community.

The metropolis has collaborated with Jefferson County, Jefferson Health care, the Port Townsend College District, Olympic Peninsula YMCA, and the Jefferson County Aquatics Coalition for the venture.

“To build a new facility for the neighborhood, it will get public, non-public, nonprofit, and people to aid with this effort,” town documents reported. “The city seeks to operate with and impact partners to collaborate on this significant effort for this group for our collective and enduring advantage.”

Challenge Scheduling

There are set to be five phases of ideas for the health and fitness and wellness heart, with the metropolis now in Period 1.

“The setting up effort and hard work will be a multi-phased hard work culminating in a closing report and implementation program that will be transmitted to each individual general public entity, the neighborhood, and stakeholders,” metropolis documents said. “It will recognize subsequent actions for implementation and the roles and duties of just about every community entity.”

Comparable to use of a stakeholder committee for the poplar elimination alongside Sims Way and present actions with the Port Townsend Golf System, the pool organizing will incorporate a stakeholder team.