COLLEGE, CITY AND COUNTY TO BREAK GROUND ON NEW AQUATICS COMPLEX TO SERVE THE REGION

An unusual public/education partnership will be showcased on Thursday, November 5, as Riverside Community College District, the City of Riverside, the County of Riverside, and the RCCD Foundation break ground for the region’s first, and one of California’s few, multiple use, Olympic-quality aquatics complexes.

When opened in early 2011, the Riverside Aquatics Complex will address several critical needs in the region, most importantly a lack of available pools for competitive training and competition and recreational community use. The 65-meter, all-deep pool will be built on the Riverside City College campus adjacent to the Cutter Pool facility. Construction will link the two facilities into a major aquatics venue that will be able to accommodate swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming, and aquatics recreation and fitness.

Approximately $11 million will be used to construct the complex, including $5 million in Measure C funds committed by RCCD, $3 million from the City of Riverside, nearly $2 million from Riverside County Supervisors Bon Buster and John Tavaglione, and just over $1.1 million to date in private support through the RCCD Foundation. Fundraising for the project continues to build an operational endowment under Campaign Splash, led by former RCCD Foundation board member Debbi Huffman Guthrie. Named gift opportunities are still available to interested individuals and corporations.

One of the unique features of this facility will be the 65-meter pool and its capacity to simultaneously hold three different aquatics competitions such as swimming, diving, and water polo thanks to a moveable bulkhead spanning the pool’s width. A 10-meter platform dive tower, lower spring boards, disabled access, marked lanes, patron stands, an aquatics building with offices, locker rooms, and showers, and an electronic scoreboard complete the new pool’s design, making it suitable for regional, state, and national competitions. Community and business leaders anticipate a significant economic impact due to increased numbers of visitors and overnight bookings at local hotels.

Through the partnership, athletes from Riverside City College and local swim, dive, water polo and synchronized swim clubs and teams will use the new complex to train and compete, resolving a decades-old impediment to broadening the appeal and access to aquatics sports to youth in the community: costs and freeway time required for parents and young athletes to travel for training in Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties. Use of Cutter Pool will also help continue to meet high demand for programs such as the popular College for Kids Summer Swimming and physical fitness classes.

The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 9 am, November 5, on RCC’s lower campus between Cutter Pool and Lovekin Complex. Free parking will be available and refreshments will be served. Members of the public attending the ceremony should enter off College Drive/Ramona Avenue onto Saunders Street. For more information, call (951) 222-8857.