Although the Carbondale Park District’s pool committee recently met for the first time, its members are already moving to get estimates on a recreation complex.

This newly formed committee, with many members from a previous pool discussion group, the Carbondale Aquatic Complex Committee, will solicit three pool architects to look into rough estimates for pool costs and possible designs for a recreation complex.

The three architectural businesses were also contacted last year by the Carbondale Aquatic Complex Committee to showcase possible designs for a public pool to Carbondale residents.

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This time the estimates will include the addition of other recreational features like basketball and tennis courts and a skate park. The park district’s board approved interim director Mike Heck’s proposal to expand the pool complex project into a recreation complex, which would be located on the Superblock off of Lewis Lane.

From what they have learned from other communities taking on similar projects, group members discussed how they believe the businesses will perform these services for free at Thursday’s meeting.

Unlike when the Aquatic Complex Committee worked under Carbondale’s Human Relations Commission and then independently, the park district has resources this newly formed group could rely on, Heck said.

“We’re not coming to you and saying you’ve got to do it all,” he said.

One example was financing for the project, which can be handled by other departments within the park district.

The Aquatics Complex Committee left the Human Relations Commission, which deals with diversity in the community, because members felt they had out grown their original purpose of being a study circle.

While the recreation project is nowhere near complete, Heck has said he hopes to see the project put on a tax referendum in January to be voted on in March.

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Group member Sally Wright expressed concerns about moving so fast, but Heck reassured her if the pool group decides it is not ready the board would not move forward.

The group has about four months to get an estimate of what the project will cost in order to give Speer Financial, who does bond writing for the district, a chance to figure how much a pool would cost tax payers.

This fast paced movement is not something to worry about, said David Phillips, Senior Vice President of Speer Financial. The group has worked with other communities doing the same type of project and this is actually how quick things tend to happen, Phillips said.

Heck said he has been looking at multiple ways to finance the pool, like taking out an alternative revenue bond as well as corporate sponsorship.

Heck said he wants the amount of proposed increase in property taxes the group presents to residents to be as close to the final numbers as possible.

“The assumptions being made are not only factual but conservative,” Phillips said.

All the members of the Aquatic Complex Committee that are now serving on the park district’s committee said in the year they have been working to bring a public pool to Carbondale, no one has contacted them in opposition.

Reporter Destiny Remezas can be reached at [email protected]