MOUNTLAKE TERRACE
For 20 years, Donald Cobb has swum his morning laps at the Recreation Pavilion.
“It’s convenient, for one thing,” said Cobb, 80, who logs a quarter mile early each morning, five days a week.
Then there’s the camaraderie, he said.
“I’d say there’s a core of 20 people. Everybody knows each other and then when a stranger comes in, we introduce ourselves.”
Cobb isn’t alone. About 1,000 people a day use the Recreation Pavilion, 5303 228th St. SW, the place which, for many residents and non-residents, is the heart of Mountlake Terrace.
“A lot of people know where the pavilion is but they don’t know where City Hall is,” said Pat McMahan, a resident since 1952.
The recreational center of the city turned 40 in November. As Mountlake Terrace considers the future of its public buildings, the Pavilion, too, has reached a fork in the road, when decisions about its own future could set the tone for the next 40 years of Pavilion recreation. By the end of the year, the city will receive a full consultant’s report suggesting ways to update its Recreation and Parks Master Plan. And a task force is closely examining all city facilities, including the Pavilion.
The push for a recreation center started a decade after Mountlake Terrace became a city on Nov. 30, 1954. After an initial effort to pass a recreation and parks bond failed, a second bond measure, in 1964, succeeded.
“A bunch of us got together and planned an election,” recalled Pat McMahan, a longtime resident and former City Council member. “I’d be damned if it didn’t pass.”
Next, city leaders began acquiring parks, securing 50 acres of land and three neighborhood parks, said Recreation and Parks Director Don Sarcletti.
In 1966, a company came up with a final report and site design. Construction followed and on Nov. 26, 1968, doors opened, with the late U.S. Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson serving as the keynote speaker for the kickoff event. The final cost of the project was $700,000.
This wasn’t just any recreation center. Architects designed one of the first swimming pools with wrap-around classrooms in the state. In the 1970s, as racquetball caught on with the masses, the Pavilion was the first publicly-owned recreation center in Washington to offer the sport, Sarcletti said.
“They wanted to make the pool the highlight but also wanted to feature the other activities,” he said.
Today, the center offers a range of sports and recreation activities, including a dance program, classes for seniors, volleyball and basketball, even childcare.
With limited advertising, the 33,000-square-foot Pavilion, which got some upgrades in 2003, has succeeded by becoming a place that families come to year after year. In 2007, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it the best place in the region for a pool party. The center also was a National Gold Medal Award winner in 1986 and earned an “Excellence in Aquatics” award from the national Recreation and Parks Association in 2007.
“I think our best marketing plan is the quality of programs we’ve had over the years,” Sarcletti said.
A lifelong recreation enthusiast, Sarcletti came to Mountlake Terrace from his native South San Francisco shortly after getting married in 1978, accepting a position as recreation supervisor.
Once here, he realized he had something in common with Mickey Corso, the late, long-time recreation and parks director: Corso had been a recreation leader in South San Francisco when Sarcletti was a kid.
“We went to the same high school,” Sarcletti said.
Over the years, Sarcletti has seen parents bring their children in for swimming classes. Many of those kids are now adults who bring their own children to the facility.
Other than a five year stint working for the city of Lynnwood in the 1980s, Sarcletti’s been involved with the Pavilion ever since. He was appointed as its director in 1999.
In spite of its success, perhaps because of it, a remodeling or expansion is in its future. A Civic Facilities Task Force recently saw some very preliminary sketches showing ways to expand and upgrade the pavilion. One drawing places a new walkway around the swimming pool that is outside the pool area, and adds another pool.
Whatever comes to pass, McMahan, task force vice-chair, said he wants to make sure the changes last at least another 40 years.
“It’s just been a jewel for the community and people use it a lot,” he said. “I think it’s important to build for the future.”
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