Dianne Polasik has been advocating for an indoor pool and community center in the Stillwater area for more than 40 years.

She’s hoping this time, the fifth time, will be the charm.

Dianne Polasik, president of the board of the Valley Community Center, which is exploring options for a community center and indoor pool in the Stillwater area. (Courtesy of Valley Community Center)

Polasik is president of the board of the Valley Community Center, a nonprofit organization exploring options for a community center in the Stillwater Area Public School District. The group recently hired Colorado-based Ballard*King & Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in, among other things, creating feasibility studies for recreational and sports facilities, to conduct a survey of more than 1,300 residents of the area.

Nearly 90 percent of the respondents support an indoor pool. “Spoiler alert: everybody wants a pool,” Polasik said. “Since we don’t have a pool, we have to go to other community pools and drive a ways to get there.”

A meeting to gauge community interest in a possible Valley Community Center and indoor pool will be held Thursday, Nov. 9. No money has been raised, and a location has not been determined, Polasik said.

“We’re looking in the central part of the St. Croix River Valley,” she said. “The four biggest cities are Bayport, Oak Park Heights, Stillwater and Lake Elmo, so it would likely be in one of those cities. A big consideration will be accessibility to families, and it would be great if they could get there by bike.”

Results from the Ballard*King survey, which was conducted from April to September, will be shared at Thursday’s meeting. The $23,000 survey was paid for with grant money from the Lee and Dorothy Whitson Fund at the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, Polasik said.

In addition to an indoor pool, top trends in the survey were multi-purpose gyms, group exercise, indoor play, community gathering, indoor run/jog and teens programs. More than 80 percent of the responders indicated those things were important.

“People want a place that will serve all ages and all abilities,” Polasik said. “Accessibility was a big deal. Income accessibility also is a big deal for people. Our communities have a wide variety of places and programs for different social, cultural or age groups, and we have a variety of sports and recreation opportunities in several different places, each with varying availability and accessibility, but there is not one place where an individual or family can go for all of the following: a variety of aquatic programs, a variety of physical fitness activities, a place to sit and share stories with friends, a place to learn, a place to grow. This was our challenge. What would this place look like for our valley communities? A place for families, singles, adults — young and old, for all of us.”

‘We already have a river’

Polasik, 72, of Stillwater Township, is a longtime water-safety instructor and competitive Masters swimmer who was part of the cohort that asked the YMCA to consider a Stillwater location in the 1970s. “We were all single, and we wanted a place to hang out and swim,” said Polasik, who regularly drove to the YMCA in White Bear Lake for practice. “The answer at that time was, ‘We already have a river.’”

It’s the city’s proximity to the St. Croix River that makes having an indoor community pool so paramount, Polasik said.

“We need a place where every child can learn to swim — not restricted by ability or income,” said Polasik, who taught swim lessons for decades, most recently for Stillwater Area Schools Community Education. “I believe every child should have access to swimming lessons, especially because we live next to a river.”

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The Valley Community Center’s push for a new community center is the fifth attempt that Polasik can remember. In addition to her involvement in the 1970s, Polasik said she was involved in a push for a community center when the school district was looking at a new Early Childhood Center.

“We brought the YMCA on board as a potential partner, but that one was not successful,” she said.

There were at least two other attempts, including a push to include a community center as part of the construction of a new Stillwater Army National Guard Readiness Center project in 2014-2016, but that did not materialize. Another group was working to bring a YMCA to the community, but that effort ended when the Pony Activity Center was built, she said.

The Pony Activity Center, the fitness center attached to the Stillwater Area High School in Oak Park Heights, opened in 2017. It includes four gymnasiums, an indoor walking track, weight room, cardio room and a locker room with showers. It costs $24 a month for full access.

Stillwater facilities

The city of Stillwater does not have plans to fund a community center, said City Council Member Mike Polehna, who was instrumental in the creation of the St. Croix Valley Recreation Center and the Jaycee Fields in Stillwater.

The city already runs an ice arena – the St. Croix Valley Recreation Center – that serves all the school children in the area, he said. “We’ve picked up the tab all along on the ice rink and dome,” he said. “That’s on the taxpayers of Stillwater. I just don’t want to see Stillwater paying for everything anymore. We do ball fields for everybody. We have three ice arenas for everybody. We just can’t do everything. A pool is a black hole unless you have a water-park type thing.”

VCC officials plan to ask for donations and apply for grants to cover the estimated $20,000 to $30,000 it will cost to conduct a detailed feasibility study that will include market assessment, operations planning, revenue projections and operational expense analysis, Polasik said.

“It’s asking people to put some skin in the game,” she said. “We need to determine exactly what services people would use. How much are they willing to pay? How far are they willing to drive? All those factors come up in that feasibility study to make sure it’s going to be sustainable – and then who would pay for it? That will be followed by more fine-tuned meetings with stakeholders to identify potential partners and local governments, if we feel they’re ready to hear from us — all the while keeping our grass-roots campaign energized in our communities. … We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Valley Community Center input session

What: Community input session on a possible new community center in the Stillwater area
When: 6:30-8 p.m. Nov. 9
Where: Community Thread, 2300 Orleans St. W., Stillwater
Information: thevalleycenter.org

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