I think the debate is over, we wanted an indoor pool and we got one. But a major issue at the time was the location of the pool. While I wouldn’t be opposed to a public indoor pool built at a city park, Spellerberg Park was problematic from the get go.
Besides the fact that there is no room for expansion, one of the major issues was parking expansion of the VA. We knew the VA was going to expand, we knew they would need more parking and we knew they held the quit claim deed to Spellerberg. If the pool wasn’t built there they could have easily expanded parking into the park. NOW, we have LifeScape tearing up affordable housing in the center of our city for parking because they NO longer have space at the VA.
I still believe a public/private partnership with Sanford at the Sports complex for an indoor pool would have made more sense, and really there is nothing stopping them from doing their own pool in the future.
While the negotiations behind the RR redevelopment was one of the worst in the past administration, building the indoor pool at Spellerberg is proving also to be another poor decision from a RAM-ROD mentality of the previous administration.