GREENWOOD — Some people who examined plans for an aquatics center at Ben Geren Regional Park expressed disappointment that the project has shrunk.

“It’s too juvenile.” Michele Walker said that was the verdict of her ninth-grade English students at Ramsey Junior High School.

Walker and Sebastian County Quorum Court member Danny Aldridge said the aquatics center features were not the same as in the design when Fort Smith voters and Sebastian County Quorum Court members voted to fund it.

Specifically, Walker said, a diving area in the original plans is now gone and the double loop 770-foot lazy river is now down to one loop and 400 feet in length. The inner-tube slide that emptied into the lazy river also has been removed from the original design, she said.

Sebastian County and Fort Smith are equal partners in the $8 million project, with each committing $4 million. The city and county also will share the cost of operating the center, estimated to be about $110,000 the first two years, according to information provided by county officials.

Fort Smith voters approved reallocation of a 1 percent sales tax last March. Of the 1 per-cent, revenue from 0.75 percent of the tax will be used to pay off bonds issued to pay for several projects, among them the aquatic center.

Sebastian County’s share is coming from a capital fund that has built up over the years with part of its share of a 1-percent countywide sales tax.

Quorum Court members voted 7-6 on Jan. 15 to appropriate money from the fund to the project. Because the vote did not receive a two-thirds majority, it must be read and voted on twice more.

The second vote will be at the Feb. 19 meeting.

Sebastian County Judge David Hudson said he would consider the feedback and bring up the suggestions for the center at a joint Sebastian County/Fort Smith meeting scheduled Tuesday at Ben Geren Park. Hudson said he was confident the justices of the peace would continue to vote for the appropriation, supporting the commitment the county made with the city to fund the aquatics center.

Hudson said if the Quorum Court votes down the appropriation ordinance, the city and county may have to enter into mediation to resolve the issue because the two governments entered into the agreement to jointly fund the aquatics center.

Walker said when she discussed the aquatics center with her students, they responded they felt cheated. She included her remarks in a letter she said she was delivering to each Quorum Court member.

Aldridge, who attended the second of two public input meetings Monday in Fort Smith and Tuesday in Greenwood, mentioned the smaller lazy river and the lack of landscaping around it and the initial 7-acre campus was reduced to 4.5 acres.

He also said he’d like to see the party room for children back in the plans. The room was replaced in the plans with Ben Geren Park offices, he said.

Aldridge said Wednesday that his constituents deserve the most features for the money and, if they’re not going to get them, the project may not be worth doing.

He wouldn’t say Wednesday whether he would change his vote on the project. He voted in favor of the appropriation Jan. 15.

“It will be a great addition to the region but I’d like to see it tweaked,” Aldridge told Andrew Smith, the representative of center designer Larkin Aquatics of Kansas City, Mo., who attended Tuesday’s meeting in Greenwood.

Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack said Wednesday that Fort Smith voters approved the construction of an aquatics center last March but not each feature in it. Choices on which features to put in and take out had to be made to keep the project within the budget, he said.

He said he was confident the county and city could build an aquatics center residents of all ages could enjoy.

But he said the design features for the aquatics center were limited to the money available for the project.

“It’s a matter of $8 million in 2010 and $8 million in 2013,” Hudson said cost is the difference between features in the initial plans versus the features in the plans exhibited Monday and Tuesday at the public meetings.

Gosack said Wednesday that the initial aquatics center plan drawn up by the county was a conceptual plan. As city and county officials worked with the architect, the plans were refined and the costs became more reliable. Officials retained features that kept the project within budget.

Ben Geren Park is not within Fort Smith city limits. City directors annexed the land for the aquatics center last year so city money could be spent on the project.

Smith said changes also were made by city and county officials so the aquatics center would complement, not duplicate, Fort Smith’s pool at Creekmore Park, which has a large lap pool and a diving pool.

Others who attended the meeting Tuesday said they liked the plans.

“This is going to be good,” Otis Edwards of Greenwood said after looking over the pictures of plans and drawings on easels that lined the room at the Greenwood courthouse.

“It’s been needed for years, ever since they closed the pool” at Ben Geren, he said.

The proposed aquatics center will have a children’s pool, one for families with depths ranging from 3 to 5 feet, the lazy river that will propel floating bathers around the loop on a current created by intermittently placed water jets and the pool that will receive users of four water slides.

The water slides will start atop a tower about 30 feet tall.

The center also will have grassy areas, shaded areas, areas for sunning, a concession area and bathhouse.

The project is scheduled to be put up for bid this spring with construction beginning this summer. The plan is for the center to be ready to open on Memorial Day weekend 2014, according to information released by the city and the county.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/07/2013