The Northshore YMCA.
Kirkland-based swim team WAVE Aquatics.
West Coast Aquatics.
Bothell Public Information Officer Joyce Goedeke confirmed all of the above entities have at least shown some interest in the future of Bothell’s Ruiz-Costie/Northshore Pool.
Bothell and presumably its partners in the Northshore Pool are on the hunt for a potential new operator for the facility on Bothell Way Northeast.
The partners include the city of Woodinville and the Northshore School District.
District Interim Director of Communications Pamela Steele said the schools received a letter dated June 24 from current operators, Seattle’s Northwest Center that it would be walking away from the pool mostly for economic reasons. No one from the city of Bothell or its pool partners has said the facility will close, but Northwest plans to stop overseeing building operations Aug. 31.
Goedeke said officials from WAVE and the local YMCA toured the Northshore Pool June 17. No one committed to taking over the building, but apparently no one ruled it out, either.
“Potential pool operators are doing their due diligence to determine if they can operate the pool and break even,” Goedeke said.
West Coast Aquatics was supposed to be represented during the tour, but Goedeke said it cancelled and had not rescheduled as of July 22.
Based in Mill Creek, West Coast is the group that took over the Carole Ann Wald Memorial Pool in Kenmore’s St. Edward Park after Northwest Center pulled out of its operating agreement there. As is the case with the Bothell pool, the Seattle based nonprofit said the pool was operating at a financial deficit.
Regarding the Bothell pool, according to Steele, Northwest claimed it is losing about $50,000 a year. Officials of the nonprofit said the Kenmore pool was costing them $55,000 annually.
Jamie Owens is the aquatics director for the Northshore YMCA in Bothell and was among the YMCA officials who toured the Northshore pool.
“I can’t speak to what the YMCA is going to do with the pool,” he said.
But Owens did have a lot to say about the condition of aquatic facilities in this area in general. He noted the well-publicized problems with the Wald pool, as well as the Juanita High swimming pool, which was facing a budget axe wielded by the Lake Washington School District.
In the case of the Juanita pool, WAVE stepped in as a new operator, presumably saving several school-based swimming programs in the process.
“Those are just pieces of the big picture,” Owens said.
He said there are very few local pools that provide enough space for high- school and large swim-team competitions. He said the YMCA was forced to look outside the area for a spot to hold regional meets.
“The state of aquatics in a very liquid area is pretty poor,” Owens added. He said the sport of water polo essentially has disappeared from greater Seattle for lack of pool space.
Owens noted that over the last 18 months, the YMCA of Seattle has begun building two pools and completed one in Shoreline. But Owens cautioned those looking for progress with the Northshore pool shouldn’t take the YMCA’s pool expansion as a sign of the organization’s willingness to take on even more facilities.
Neither WAVE nor West Coast returned phone calls for this story.
