MOUNTLAKE TERRACE

Mountlake Terrace’s 40-year-old Recreation Pavilion should eventually be torn down and a new, $38.4 million facility built to replace it, a city task force will recommend to the City Council.

The council still has to decide how to pay for the new Pavilion, though task force members agreed the city, rather than a parks district, should run the facility.

The 11-member Civic Facilities Advisory Task Force has spent the past eight months reviewing whether and how to remodel or replace aging city-owned buildings. In December, the task force recommended to the council a $37.6 million proposal for a new City Hall, police station and community center.

Council members this year will look more closely at the civic center plan and the public will have several opportunities to weigh-in on it. In 2010 or 2011, voters could be asked to OK a property tax increase to pay for the project but the council will decide when, and if, that vote will happen.

City consulting architects The Miller/Hull Partnership presented four design options to the task force. Those options included a proposal to simply remodel the existing Pavilion, but the task force decided a new facility makes more sense.

At the task force’s final meeting Jan. 21, city finance director Scott Hugill acknowledged that taken together, the proposed civic center project and Recreation Pavilion represent a combined $76 million, an amount he called a “pretty tough nut to crack.”

“I’m not looking to cram this whole thing into a single package and take it to the voters, that would scare me, too,” said task force member Alice Kier, who chairs the Planning Commission. Kier said she’d like to see city staff move the Pavilion plan forward, so it’s ready to go once the economy improves and after more urgent projects, such as the temporary City Hall move and detailed consideration of the civic center project, are complete.

Unlike the Civic Center proposal, which was drawn up keeping cost escalations in mind, the Pavilion proposal is based on the cost of construction in today’s dollars, Miller/Hull principal Mike Jobes told the task force.

The proposal would more than double the size of the existing Pavilion, from 33,000 square feet to 73,000 square feet, adding a second story plus a 50-meter lap swimming pool with a running track above it. The proposed Pavilion plan would also move the parking lot further south and re-orient the facility more to the northeast.

Upgrades to the existing Pavilion, a popular destination for many inside and outside Mountlake Terrace, have totaled $2,371,542 since 2001, according to a Jan. 15 memo from Hugill to task force members. Those upgrades included $262,692 for new roofing in 2001 and $1.2 million for energy and mechanical upgrades in 2003 plus a pool remodeling that cost $440,800.

Don Sarcletti, the city’s Parks and Recreation director, said he likes the proposal.

“We’ve outgrown the facility, plus a lot of the classrooms in the perimeter of the building no longer meet our needs,” he said. “We’ve kind of outgrown those spaces.”

The Pavilion has one leisure swimming pool that is also used for lap swimming. A “lazy river,” in which water flows in a circular pattern, adds another element.

One problem with the pool task force members cited is that it’s too small to host swimming competitions. A new pool would provide space for high school swim meets and a new Pavilion would include larger locker rooms, an expanded entryway and meeting and classroom space set apart from the swimming pool.

“Conceptually, I think it provides the flexibility we need, not only for current use but looking out 10 to 20 years,” Sarcletti said.