As we have been saying all along, it makes the most sense to build the indoor pool at the complex;
White cites proximity to I-90 and I-29 as a chief advantage of building a new indoor aquatics center at the Sports Complex. It makes such a facility more attractive to a wider region. Experience with existing venues for football, volleyball, basketball and wrestling suggest larger swim meets could be hosted at a Sports Complex pool than at a Spellerberg pool, White says.
The collection of venues at the Sports Complex creates a synergy that could lead to new motels, restaurants and retail development at the site, according to White. Sanford has already sold land at the Sports Complex for such amenities. A new indoor pool helps make that case, he says.
Ah, duh. So we will see if the city council and mayor are stupid enough to push forward on Spellerberg.
This makes sense to me. Unfortunately the indoor pool will go where his honor wants it, no matter what others offer or think.
Now look for a multi million dollar TIF. Isn’t this just another credit card salesman bait & switch? Spellerburg was subject because there was hardly any initial scrutiny regarding land acquisition. Similarly, the events center was supposed to be downtown but landed at the convention center.
The northwest complex is about the size of New York teams Meadowlands. Coincidentally, it’s in a rezoned area with a low tax assessment where land is spoken for and land values will skyrocket. It’s not hard to pick win, place, show when there’s only 3 horses in the race.
I voted for keeping Spellberg the same. I’m not a fan of paying for an indoor pool and I think Spellberg is not the right fit BUT there is no point in throwing a fit about it people. If you insist on putting on the ballot, it will be built there.
You can claim poor ballot wording and city unfairly selling it all you want on the last election. The facts are; the majority knew what they were voting for and Erp (the councilor for Spellberg area) was re-elected.
Thats called a mandate given by the electorate.
Budgets, cost and deficits be damned. The last 6 years of elections have proven the new voters care only about what the can get, not about what they are responsible to pay for. The credit card kids got old enough to vote and the liberal mommy state politicians are taking advantage of it.
Lastly, this isn’t a chemical plant or railway switchyard. Many will find your property more attractive as being close to a public amenity. You won’t lose money on your investment. An indoor pool will not devalue your homes.
Let me ask you this: as someone who railed against the arena site, and in my opinion for good reason, why do you think the Sanford site is any more conducive to economic development? Like the arena, it’s located in a far-flung location that isn’t proximate to residential development. Is there really a belief that an indoor pool is going to be a regional attraction?
Meanwhile, you’ve got a neighborhood around Spellerberg Perk that’s in dire need of public investment if it’s not going to hollow out in the next 20 years like so much of that area already has done. Why would it make sense for the city to willingly direct public investment to areas where there’s little to no peripheral development?
I mean, I get why this is good for Sanford, but aren’t you typically the first person in line to call them out on their self-serving approach? How is a location in arguably the least residential sector of town ideal?
The “Sanford Complex” is what what we have heard over and over from petition signers as the right place for the indoor aquatic facility. This location has been offered as an option to the city for over a year. Now that they have intentions to build a first rate facility, why would we want taxpayers to pay for a 19.4 million facility that doesn’t have the infrastructure or amenities that a first rate aquatic facility needs! Let’s make the Sanford a complete sporting complex by adding swimming!
Spellerberg is not in Erps district. Neither was the money she had in her campaign war chest. Spellerberg is in karskys district, and the money people who pull her strings live well outside the central district.
To say the Spellerberg vote was FOR an indoor pool is nonsense. Maybe for the people who read dacola it was, but in general? No way. I have the opportunity to spend about 20 hours a week helping senior citizens in one form or another. I assure you, try as they might to keep abreast of city issues, very damn few were voting FOR an indoor pool. They voted on exactly what the ballot language put forth. Yea or nay on an outdoor pool. Nothing more. Nothing less.
This will be great. One in the middle of the city for the locals to enjoy and one out in the boonies for swim meets. Probably even get a few college meets. Why tie up a city pool for all that stuff?
The city will build theirs, the Sanford one is just a feasibility study. The city already had their study and Spellberg was the location the consultants chose.
POrogressive – you have over-interpreted what Sanford has said. They have not said the have “intentions” to build. They say they want to “do a study”. And as was pointed out in today’s AL – That study has already been done – by the city – paid for with city tax-payer dollars. Secondly let me ask you thi – have you EVER been to a “first rate indoor aquatic facility”? If not, how would you know what infrastructure and amenities are needed? BTW – I have been to a few “first rate indoor aquatic facilities”, In first-rate cities like Oslo Norway, Long Beach California, and so on. NONE of them were “out by the Interstate” somewhere. ALL of them were in the centers of cities, on well-served public transit routes, so they could be easily accessed by ALL of the citizens.
Gosh this always gets weird when the out of towners bring in their expertise to our city discussions. It shows how little is understood.
A study has already been done – by the city – paid for with city taxpayer dollars. Ah yes the C-H study is brought up again. It was admitted by the author of the study, they were told ahead of time what was expected as a result and they wrote it. The Parks and Rec department laid out the requirements and C-H wrote it for the marketing purposes of the mayor.
have you EVER been to a “first rate indoor aquatic facilityâ€? If not, how would you know what infrastructure and amenities are needed? Let’s see , going to Scandinavia and CA adds a lot to this discussion. We are talking about midwestern small towns like Sioux Falls with an anticipated 100 winter time users a day, as planned by the city. The facility needs to planned as a destination complex. This is why Sanford wants to do it.
NONE of them were “out by the Interstate†somewhere. ALL of them were in the centers of cities, on well-served public transit routes, so they could be easily accessed by ALL of the citizens. Sioux Falls is a car centric small town where everything we do and will do for many years is based on having mom drive the kids to the current outer edges of town. Even with a “central” location mom will be driving two lane streets, finding a parking spot and walking distances in the blizzards of a SD winter.
Sioux Falls is growing to the northwest making the arena and Sanford complex more central.
Once again Sioux falls is planning for yesterday and suffering tomorrow.
Could just build it at the Spellerberg site, then use the Sanford Hospital parking lots so the VA isn’t affected.
Gees Ruf,
they took 47k from the paratransit to do drawings of the indoor pool for a marketing campaign just before the election. . Do ya think MMM gives a damn that all citizens should be accommodated with transportation to the indoor pool?
Poly. Thanks for the clarification on Spellberg areas city councilor. But also, I don’t hear Karsky saying no to these indoor pool plans. Hence a mandate. Older voters are smarter on these issues than you think as they read the newspaper the most.
If you think Spellberg indoor pool will not win on the ballot, your nuts.
Slewfoots got it right. There will be 2 indoor pools in both locations real soon. The Sanford crew just wants half our cash to build theirs.
How much money did the Save Spellerberg group end up costing the city?
Harry, the Save Spellerbergers did not cost the city a dime. The marketing department in the mayor’s office cost the city over $100,000 to illegally confuse the public.
The city has not heard the last of the legal side of this advocational program system they have developed.
The city may be surprised by the ‘cost’ their win at all costs strategy totals out to be. The impropriety of designers / video creators giving $1,000 and maybe more of the money they received from the city to the pro-indoor pool efforts borders on federal criminal concerns.
We are working on several issues, stay tuned.
Older voters are smarter on these issues than you think as they read the newspaper the most.
I “polled” a fair amount of seniors after they voted. None were aware they were voting for an indoor pool. NONE. They can tell me all I care to hear about Benghazi, or Clive bundy, while he was still foxes media darling, but not much about city politics. They voted on exactly what the ballot wording was. Nowhere in the ballot wording was the word indoor used.
Gosh it’s great when a whole bunch of people who never go to the SSC start thinking they know what needs to be located out there. They are projecting 900K visitors a year there now when it’s built out..adding another 100K for swimmers will only make the traffic and parking situation out there worse…probably even worse than Spellerberg. Unless your rec swimmers tire of the drive and battling the other sports for spots, then the place will drop down to about 50K users a year and many of those won’t even be from SF.
Newsflash: Sanford has a plan for the area and originally it didn’t include an indoor pool. Why? Several reasons. For starters, they want to attract hotels and hotels like to offer pools to their travelers, most sporting families expect one along with the free breakfast. Why undercut the private sector?
Also, the swim team demographic is indeed a small, but growing one, which is why it was idiotic to ever expect them to raise significant $$ to build a facility. Sure they can raise money, but even if they hit a million $ that’s still not even enough for the down payment on a suitable, competitive indoor facility. That’s why combining it with a neighborhood, mixed use typed facility like the one that’s been designed makes the most sense for both the City and the teams.
Third, they have 50 acres left, to which I’m guessing they planned on either ball diamonds and/or outdoor soccer fields to accommodate the 20 year growth patterns of those sports. Or maybe they planned on something we don’t even have, like a velodrome like the one they have at the Schwan facility in Blaine.
Either way, they weren’t planning on an indoor pool until their phones got lit up by a bunch of whiny, wannabe city planners who didn’t like the way the public voted. Spellerberg is still by far the best location as it goes there you may actually get Avera and Sanford (among others) to bid on the naming rights.
@ Bruce, the public wasn’t confused. They voted and the results are clear. They didn’t want an outdoor pool at Spellerberg, they wanted what they saw in the drawings on the news. LJL is right, they go to the poles again and it will again be 70-30% as I predicted and we will have wasted another year, the cost of the election and more $$ as the cost of the project will increase.
Well said Sy!
Sy, the issue for the election was for an outdoor pool. If a real exit poll was done on election day, we would have found:
1. a strong percentage did not want any pool replacement for Spellerberg,
2. the 30% who understood the question being asked and voted for the initiative,
3. a percentage who wanted the question to be what was NOT on the ballot, an indoor pool,
4. the rest were confused by the whole process.
To look back on the results of election day and extrapolate because 2 + 2 does not equal 5, we should therefore assume it equals 100 is as foolish a logic.
Michele Erp pulled a poll out of somewhere to try and prove a point at a recent city council informational. The mayor took biased polling to build his logic for us to proceed. Diamond Jim wants to vote for something he will never use but he probably could make money one after he is out of office? We don’t know but doesn’t make sense to now look at the options and make a decision the town can live with for many years to come.
As it is said, Sioux Falls plans for yesterday while setting up future’s suffering.
Bruce, then how the hell can you extrapolate that voters overwhelmingly rejected an outdoor pool but were confused and really want no pool or fix the old one? You are starting to sound like the resident expert on fools logic.
You were all bent about the City first spending money on the pool drawings and then you got even more pist when they went ahead and used the drawing as intended to show the voters what the new indoor pool would look like. You even tried to be the grammar police and wanted all of us to believe the sky was falling over a typo that had no impact on the ballot question whatsoever.
Well guess what? The 30% that lost last time was made up of a coalition of anti-mayor types like yourself, anti indoor pool types like CR, anti anything types like L3wis, and the NIMBYs from the neighborhood who got a few sympathy votes from the NIMBYS on the south side. Most of those who voted yes wanted a new outdoor pool like Drake, and even Mr. Matthius or one of the Save Spellerberg leaders said on KELO “No, the last thing we want is another Drake Springs”, what’s wrong with Drake or better yet who’s confused again?
You’re lucky you guys got to 30% because in reality you’re representing about 10% of the population. If voters were confused you can thank the petition organizers for the shitty way they wrote it, yes was to build the same thing we have only with some water slides and that idea went down in flames.
Bruce the issue for Spellerberg – JUST LIKE the issue at 85th/Minnesota – was NIMBYism.
What a douche. You claim nimbyism while you’ve set up camp on the edge of nowhere.
It’s amazing how the simple minded folks don’t think people should have the right to debate what THEIR government changes in THEIR neighborhoods.
Here is a few more isms for you: Naziism, Stalinism,MaCarthyism, Communism. Pretty sure all those evil isms started with little opposition debate.