Multi-million dollar aquatics center to be built, but maybe not at Burle

Plans for a $68 million aquatics center are alive and well, but it may not be built at the Burle Business Park.

A posting on the TLC Aquatics Center facebook page on Thursday noted the planned multi-pool competition and therapy facility will not be built at the edge of the former RCA complex, at New Holland Avenue and Pleasure Road.

That posting was later removed.

Architect Edwin Wallover III, a principal in the group developing the project, confirmed Thursday that site plans had changed.

He declined to say where the aquatics center would be constructed, but he assured a reporter the project is moving forward and the changes are positive.

“I think the new site and the new opportunities being presented are going to make this project even better,” Wallover said.

Yet, Andrew Woolley, president of The Woolley Group, the project’s lead developer, said Thursday that no decision has been made on a site.

Woolley said a project meeting is scheduled next week with representatives of Burle.

Susan Wallover, president of Wallover Aquatics International and wife of Edwin Wallover, is the third principal in the development group.

Randy Patterson, Lancaster city director of economic development and neighborhood revitalization, said he had received a letter from the developers a few weeks ago. It said they are considering alternative sites.

Patterson said he hopes to meet with them and find another site for the aquatics center in the city.

An alternative site may not be in Lancaster’s City Revitalization and Improvement Zone.

The city was chosen late last year to participate in the new state program that uses tax dollars collected in an area for economic development incentives.

Some of the 130 acres in the city’s CRIZ zone are in Burle specifically for the aquatics center project.

If another project is constructed there it would have that economic incentive, unless Burle officials agreed to have the land withdrawn from the CRIZ zone, Patterson said.

If the aquatics center is constructed elsewhere, it may be done at a lower cost.

Initial plans in 2012 called for a $41 million facility. The cost increased to $56 million by March of this year.

That increase was due largely to the requirement that state-mandated prevailing wages be paid to workers during construction, Woolley said in a presentation to the city CRIZ board.

The prevailing wage requirement would be removed if it is constructed outside of the CRIZ zone.

In March, Woolley said the plans were for a 213,000-square-foot facility. At the heart of the building would be a 50-meter competition pool to be used for high school, college and masters competitions.

A large leisure pool, designed for children, would be at one end of the building. Upper levels would include classrooms and therapy spaces for rehabilitation, physical therapy and wellness programs, Woolley said.

TLC stands for therapy, leisure and competition, he told revitalization and improvement authority board members.

At that time, he said the project was 83 percent leased and he expected to begin construction this fall.

Althea Ramsay-Carrigan, vice president of real estate at Burle Business Park, declined to comment on the aquatics center project on Thursday.

Ramsay-Carrigan said there are no immediate plans for the site. It will continue to be used, as it has in recent years, for shuttle parking for next month’s WIOV Fallfest country music festival and for staging the mother’s day Make-A-Wish Convoy, she said.

Ramsay-Carrigan would not comment on whether there are ongoing discussions with other potential users for the site.

It is Burle’s policy not to discuss and prospective business, she said.

Source: Lancaster Online