Jasper Pool Draws Crowds as Regional Wellness Center Takes Shape

At Wednesday morning’s meeting of the Jasper Redevelopment Authority, officials heard updates on the municipal pool and prepared for the next phase of the Regional Wellness Center’s construction.

Park Department Director Tom Moorman presented change orders for the Taber Owens Contract. Moorman explained that the change orders have already been approved, but this is the formal action required to reflect those changes accordingly in the contract. Change order 3 in the amount of $60,770 was for the south slope modifications, some parking undercut, and rock excavation. Change order 4 in the amount of $151,930 was for concrete, lights for the building, clear flow pool equipment, floor coating, and a few other approved items. These changes brought the total contract price to $9,634,113, which was approved by the board.

Sharing some statistics for the current season, Moorman said that the pool has already had over 12,000 visitors in its first three weeks. This exceeds last year’s total during the same timeframe, in spite of some challenging weather. This year, the pool is able to offer twilight swims every Wednesday, which is also a change from last season. With the price increases for private party bookings, there have been fewer reservations, but more than expected.

City attorney Renee Kabrick reviewed a previous property transfer for the board, where the City transferred a small triangle of property to the high school. This allowed the school to complete their parking lot and have the new lot for the girls’ softball facility all on their own property. In exchange, the City received a section of property on the west side of the City’s tract that will serve as the location of an auxiliary drive. It will lead to the Wellness Center’s parking lot as well as the softball parking lot.

Kabrick said the City, the YMCA, the working team for the Regional Wellness Center and the school “recognize that each of those facilities will, on occasion, have events that overflow from their own parking. And because of the vicinity of the two facilities right next to each other, we thought it would be a prudent thing to do to enter into a shared use parking agreement so that when those times occur, both parties expect and do not object to the use by the other of the parking facilities.” The board approved the Regional Wellness Center Shared Parking Agreement as presented.

A claim was approved for Taber Owens Construction Group, App No. 2404-2B, in the amount of $55,302.35. Two claims were also approved for SCP Distributors LLC (dba RecSupply) for pool supplies in the amounts of $402.07 and $212.88.

For more information on these and other updates, visit jasperindiana.gov or JasperGov-Indiana on Facebook.

- By Drew Hasselbring