News

New city pool, rec center could cost up to $60 million

Slide shows cost projections for four options consultants created to replace Patton Pool and the Whitmire Center, which remain closed after Hurricane Helene wrecked them. [CITY ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT]

By Bill Moss, Published: July 30, 2025

Swimmers want an indoor pool with at least 25-meter lanes, preferably 50-meter. Regular walkers wish city walking trails had rest rooms. Pickleball Nation wants more courts. Kids want a skate park and “pump track” for bicycling. And bridge players want a regular place to pile up masterpoints.

Some or all of that could happen in the coming years. The most expensive of the options likely won’t happen unless the city of Hendersonville gets some parks and recreation partners, a dedicated source of revenue, a big grant or all of the above.

Earlier this month, consultants unveiled four options to replace the recreation assets deemed damaged beyond repair by Hurricane Helene — Patton pool and the Whitmire Center at Toms Park. Last week during a city council meeting, a city engineer added cost projections. Options are:

• Whitmire Center 1A: A new 12,000-square-foot building with restrooms on the Toms Park walking trail, playground, a “flex lawn” suitable for various activities and stream restoration, $5-8 million.
• Whitmire Center 1B: Trail restrooms, playground, flex lawn, picnic area and shuffleboard courts. This options includes no building; the rec center would move to Patton Park, $500,000 to $800,000.
• Patton Park 2A: A 71,800-square-foot indoor aquatic center with 50-meter pool, 5-lane warm water wellness pool, event space and concessions; “pump track” bicycle park, playground, walking trail restrooms, $35-45 million.
• Patton Park 2B: An indoor-outdoor aquatic center with a 17,000-square-foot outdoor pool with lazy river and splash deck and 34,500-square-foot indoor pool with a 25-yard pool, 3-lane warm water wellness pool and event seating; a 20,000-square-foot rec center with a large flex space, concessions, exercise studio, playground, skate park, pump track and walking trail restrooms, $45-60 million.

All four options contain flood resilience improvements made of berms, swales, sloughs, stream restoration and constructed wetlands.

Even with federal disaster aid, the more expensive options greatly exceed the city’s ability to pay.

“We’ve got about $15-20 million in capacity, from a city perspective, probably closer to 15, and then we have FEMA money and then there’s other options of grants and other capital campaigns,” said Richard Shook, a civil engineer with the city. “We do know we qualify for FEMA public assistance funds to build it back as is. There’s also a layer of hazard mitigation funding. So we’re submitting for the costs it would take to elevate the structure.”

A magnet for regional swim meets?

Presentations at the Henderson County public library on July 15 drew around 150 people. After they heard about the options, participants were given one sticker each to “vote” for their top choice.

“Overall, the majority of stickers was put on option 1A” — a new Whitmore Center, Shook said. “A lot of folks were pretty motivated by the flexible space.”

At the city council meeting, Mayor pro tem Jennifer Hensley pointed out that a 50-meter pool would draw competitors from out of town for regional swim meets, putting “heads in beds” and families at restaurant tables. The closest 50-meter pool is in Charlotte. The option to build a large aquatic center, however, eliminates an outdoor pool.

“Right off the bat, I don’t like the idea of no outdoor pool,” council member Lyndsey Simpson said.

‘It’s not just the city’

“We don’t expect you to be ready at this point” to choose which option to pursue, Shook said. City staffers wanted to report on public input because “we’ve been out in the community, stirring it up, and here’s what we’ve heard. I think we’ve got good direction that we can take back and really our next step is we are going to be engaging the cost estimators in this, because we’ve got to get things moving on the FEMA front as well.”

Hensley said there’s no way the city could shoulder the $40-60 million options by itself. The city would need “buy-in from partners” — potentially the Tourism Development Authority, the school board, Henderson County — if it wanted to build the most ambitious option.

“To do it big, we’re always going to have partners,” she said. “And if we can get the school system and Henderson County to partner with us on doing something like this, and we earmark that money, that penny (of occupancy tax) towards park development, then it makes this project significantly more feasible.

“I know that Henderson County has a lot of big capital projects they’re doing right now, but these projects take years and years to plan, and so we’re not needing them to write a check today,” Hensley added. “We need them to commit that ‘we want to be a part of this’ so that we can explore those funding options in the future. We need partners, and we need help to do this for the community. It’s not just the city of Hendersonville.”