The Redmond Area Park and Recreation District is pitching a land swap that would allow it to build a community center with new pools on school district property.

Park district officials presented the land swap Wednesday night to the Redmond School Board. The park district’s proposal is to build the 66,000-square-foot community center next door to Cascade Swim Center, which is next to Redmond High School.

The community center would include two new pools, a gym, an indoor playground, various fitness and meeting rooms and a parking lot, which would be shared with Cascade.

The three school board members present, Rick Bailey, Tim Carpenter and Johnny Corbin, expressed interest in the plan.

“There’s potential benefits to both districts,” Carpenter said. “The facility’s been there a long time, and you look at the size of the community now … you realize you have to do something.”

Built in 1979, Cascade Swim Center is the city’s only public pool.

“Having six kids, and my oldest being a former lifeguard at the pool, I know how cramped (Cascade) is also,” Bailey added.

Cascade operates at capacity “pretty consistently,” and the city of Redmond has outgrown it, park and recreation Chairman Hayes McCoy said. Cascade is a 25-meter, six-lane pool and “is lacking more modern, family-fun features,” Executive Director Katie Hammer said Tuesday.

McCoy and Hammer told the school board that their proposed community center could be built on empty land the park district already owns, a 10.67-acre parcel on SW 35th Street, south of Highway 126 and across the street from recently built housing developments. However, because that area is outside of city limits and not centrally located, the park district would prefer to build the community center next to Cascade.

McCoy and Hammer proposed that the school district could swap 11.04 acres of land — which includes Cascade plus land north of the pool with a softball field and a bus barn — for the 10.67-acre parcel. The park district would cover the cost of relocating the bus barn.

The community center would cost about $35 million and would be opened in 2021 at the earliest, Hammer said Tuesday.

Hammer told the school board that the park district will continue to talk with school district staff about a potential land swap and community polling would be conducted in September.

— Reporter: 541-617-7854; 
jhogan@bendbulletin.com