This occasional series explores Bellingham’s recreation needs and current options, and how other cities have funded and built successful public centers. This story details how the City of Bellingham, YMCA and Whatcom Aquatics Foundation are all pursuing indoor recreation projects.
Before the sun comes up, swimmers are already packing the lanes at Arne Hanna Aquatic Center.
It’s a rainy morning in November, and at 6:30 a.m., people are swimming six to eight to a lane, trying not to bump into each other as they get in their morning workout.
When the Aquatic Center was built nearly 30 years ago, it was a community-driven feat, spearheaded by passionate swimmers wanting their city to have a public pool.
[ Read more: Bellingham residents say public indoor recreation options are not enough ]
Now, the center is broadly considered to be too small for a community of Bellingham’s size, with overlapping demands from swim teams, families wanting swim lessons and recreational lap swimmers. RMC Architects, consultants hired by the City of Bellingham to review public recreation options, described the Aquatic Center as “well-used” but with “evident” wear and tear, referencing corrosion of metal surfaces, small changing rooms and limited space.
Arne Hanna’s limited capacity is just one example of the lack of indoor recreation access in Bellingham. Despite several years of starts and stops, there’s now significant movement from three stakeholder groups to expand options, and hopefully, quickly.
City of Bellingham staff began an effort in 2022 to reimagine the Civic Athletic Complex — where much of the city’s indoor recreation is located — ideally to include expanded aquatics, ice rinks and a community indoor recreation center. Parks & Recreation Director Nicole Oliver agrees expanding indoor recreation is a clear need.
The city hosted an open house on Wednesday, Nov. 6 to present four options for the reorganization of the complex: all included plans for expanded aquatics and a new community recreation facility.
Whatcom Family YMCA is also looking to expand beyond its downtown location. Retiring CEO Bill Ziels said the organization is seeking a letter of intent shortly with a Bellingham landowner to begin building a new YMCA, given parking limitations and accessibility challenges at the State Street location. Incoming CEO Courtney Whitaker, who starts in her role on Nov. 18, will focus on spearheading a capital campaign to build a “state-of-the-art facility” in Whatcom County, according to the YMCA.
And a small, passionate group of community members are looking at all possible options to increase access to aquatics in Bellingham, whether that’s through the city, through the YMCA or even through a private landowner.
All agree: There’s growing momentum for this goal given the significant need.
“We’re a community approaching 100,000 people and we need a world-class recreation center in town to serve as a community hub, that would not just serve as promoting healthy living but also family togetherness,” Ziels said.
Limited access to indoor facilities
Few public, indoor facilities exist in Bellingham.
The city’s Civic Athletic Complex, first constructed in 1960, holds the Arne Hanna Aquatic Center, built in 1995, and the Sportsplex, which provides access to ice skating, ice hockey and indoor soccer.
Beyond the public facilities, the YMCA’s downtown building has a pool, a climbing wall, a fitness center and fitness classes.
Western Washington University has a sweeping indoor recreation facility, as well as an aquatic center, but only those who are currently or formerly affiliated with the university (or are closely related to someone who is) have access to those facilities. (Western says that’s because the facilities are funded by student fees and the school has no plans to change that.)
A 2022 Recreation Needs Assessment administered by the city laid bare the public’s demand for facilities. More than 80% of 1,236 respondents said they thought Bellingham should have an indoor community recreation center, with a focus on more aquatic and ice space.
Limited aquatics access is most felt by serious swimmers, including swim instructors and competitive swim teams.
Rhonda Stouder, a swim instructor of Bellingham Bay Swim Team and a dive instructor for Bellingham Public Schools, said the city is “very sadly lacking in water space.”
This also restricts the number of divers she can coach through Bellingham Public Schools and the number of athletes on the swim team. The swim team currently has 176 swimmers, with 45 on the waitlist, said Chris Coghill, head coach.
Coghill said even by using pools across the county, and sometimes into British Columbia, there is insufficient space. The team swims at Arne Hanna and the Forge Fitness pool in Lynden, and in the summer, they swim at the outdoor pool in Sudden Valley and practice once a week at Grandview Heights Aquatic Center with a Surrey swim team.
“We have explored every possible pool in the area as an opportunity to try to expand our space so as to provide more opportunity, safely, for all the swimmers on our team and those that want to be on our team,” Coghill said.
Arne Hanna places a high priority on swim lessons, Oliver said, and now offers more than what existed before COVID-19, but lessons fill up within moments of opening registration, said Recreation Manager Melissa Bianconi. Stouder said she worries about the safety of those without access to swimming lessons.
“Aquatics in Bellingham has become a fairly elitist activity … unless you have access to private clubs like Bayside or the country club, it’s really hard to get your kid swim lessons,” said Brad Jones, a local swimmer and advocate for indoor recreation.
Jones said despite how crowded Arne Hanna is, he still goes every morning to exercise. He said it’s an important place of connection, especially for older people. But some could be deterred by the sheer number of people there.
“I feel like I watch older folks come walk into the pool every day and see the chaos and the mayhem, and so many of them just turn around and walk right back out,” he said.
Past proposals never succeeded
Bellingham’s lack of indoor recreation has come up in front of local government a few times over the last several years, but never moved much past the proposal stage.
Six years ago, the city and the YMCA began talks to expand Arne Hanna and add additional indoor recreation facilities next to the aquatics center. But when swimmers critiqued the proposal for not adequately meeting the need for more aquatics space, it stalled some momentum — and then COVID-19 hit, Ziels said.
In 2022, the YMCA tried again, proposing to the Port of Bellingham that the Boardmill Building house a community recreation center. Emails sent to port commissioners at the time favored the YMCA’s pitch, but the Port ended up choosing a plan to develop the building into a boutique hotel and convention center.
In 2023, with the Greenways levy up for renewal, Jones and others began advocating more for indoor recreation, suggesting that some of the money going to outdoor recreation should be diverted to indoor recreation.
The levy passed easily, with funds still allocated only for outdoor recreation, but a new energy around indoor recreation was born.
City efforts on indoor recreation accelerate
For the next month, the City of Bellingham is seeking public feedback on its update to the Civic Athletic Complex Master Plan, which opens nearly 70 acres of possibility for public recreation.
The complex is entirely owned by the city, with no set right of way or dedicated public streets. That gives officials an opportunity to consider the entire site, and how it could be better used, Oliver said.
“What we heard from the rec needs assessment is … [we] have all these wonderful facilities, what are the best ways to think about them for the future?” Oliver said.
In February, the city signed an agreement with Bellingham Public Schools to explore plans to relocate Carl Cozier Elementary School on the complex and eventually build a rec center on the school site.
But it won’t be quick: The school district plans to use the old Carl Cozier school as a “swing space” while it updates two other elementary schools. By 2029, the land could return to the city.
At a Nov. 6 open house, staff outlined four possible options for the rearrangement of the complex, with varying locations for Carl Cozier. All factor in expanded aquatics and a community recreation center, and three of the four options build in the opportunity to expand the Sportsplex in the future.
While Jones said he’s supportive of the plans, and has been involved in the city’s meetings with stakeholders this fall, it’s still a ways out — and Jones and others don’t like the idea of waiting another decade to expand recreation facilities in Bellingham.
But Oliver said the 2029 goal doesn’t mean they couldn’t get moving sooner.
“The momentum right now is exciting,” she said.
Small group looking at three paths forward
That momentum is exemplified in one small group of swimmers who are determined to make something happen.
With meetings scheduled with the city, ongoing talks with YMCA, and talks with an unnamed private developer and landowner, the Whatcom Aquatics Foundation — made up of Jones and several other community members — is pursuing all avenues to expand the city’s indoor recreation capacity as soon as possible. Recently, Jones connected with Whatcom County Sports and Recreation, which is eager to expand ice rink space in Bellingham.
A private developer could potentially get on board with the Whatcom Aquatics Foundation’s plans, too. Ashley Hulbert, another member of the foundation, said they’ve been in talks since last fall with a local developer who’s interested in building a private aquatics center.
“It’s promising that something could happen more privately but I think everyone would like to see some kind of public-private partnership with that,” Jones said, “because it will be fulfilling an immediate need for the city and alleviating some aquatic space and indoor recreation needs if and when it happens.”
Hulbert said all models the Whatcom Aquatics Foundation is looking at include a 50-meter cold water pool, a 25-yard pool and spectator seating.
Big dreams
With at least three groups pursuing opportunities to expand indoor recreation, the city is taking feedback until the end of the month on the options for the Civic Athletic Complex.
As for what a community recreation center or expanded aquatics facilities could look like at Civic, no funding models, partnerships or ideas are off the table for the city, Oliver said. The city’s ongoing budget challenges will be a factor in what the city is able to do, she said.
The city received funding earlier this year to investigate what business model might work for a future “Intergenerational Expanded Aquatic and Community Center” — potentially to be located on that Carl Cozier site or elsewhere in the complex. Mayor Kim Lund said in the summer that she could even envision a space that also houses the community court. “We’re coming there to get well and there’s a broad definition of how we’re supporting people and their journeys to wellness in that space,” Lund said of the idea.
Models across the state show successful partnerships with school districts, the YMCA, and Boys and Girls Clubs. All those entities are stakeholders in these conversations, Oliver said.
Bellingham Public Schools Chief Operations Officer Jessica Sankey said the district is a supporter “philosophically” of expanding indoor recreation in Bellingham.
But, Sankey said, “We need to prioritize building our schools first; like, clearly, that has to be our priority. That said, if we could find a way to have a swimming pool, we would absolutely love to do that.”
Stouder’s dreams for a Bellingham facility are inspired by Corvallis, Oregon, where she used to live. That city renovated an existing pool into a 50-meter pool and added an outdoor 25-meter pool and a water park.
“We really met all of the needs, the play needs, the competitive needs and all the space needs … and managed to keep it very busy,” she said.
There’s a tourism potential, too, of having a facility that could host events or meets, Garrett O’Brien of Whatcom Aquatics Foundation said.
Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism is working on developing better data and tracking metrics on events that bring people to town, and what economic impact the city might be missing when an event goes to another location that has better indoor facilities, Sales & Sports Development Manager Eric Rainaud-Hinds said. This data could help them build the case that more indoor athletic space would be good for the city.
Oliver said it’s an exciting time, but the process will require being innovative and will take some patience.
“It’s the potential to invest in the heart of our city and invest in community wellness and to think about it long-term together, to come to a consensus on the best way forward, together,” Oliver said.
Coming soon: A look into two successful recreation centers in Snohomish County, and three in the Lower Mainland, B.C.
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
