WAVERLY — Construction of the new Waverly Aquatic Center is well underway, but that doesn’t mean officials have stopped looking for ways to alleviate the burden of the project’s cost on the city’s residents and coffers.
On Friday, the city and the Greater Waverly Area Foundation Fund (GWAFF) announced that they had received a grant of $562,000 from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED) for the aquatic center project.
“That was very wonderful news,” said City Administrator Stephanie Fisher, who submitted the grant application earlier this year.
The grant comes from DED’s Civic and Community Center Financing Fund (CCCFF), and this was the fourth time Waverly officials have applied for the grant.
The first time they applied was in 2020, right before the city’s bond vote on the project. Not having financing in place for the project was a knock against it that year, Fisher said. In 2021, DED was only offering grants for planning. And in 2022, Waverly’s request again did not make the cut.
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This year, Fisher reached into her contacts book and obtained letters of support from U.S. Rep. Mike Flood and the Lancaster County Commissioners. She said it also may have helped that she had personally met the director in charge of dispersing CCCFF funds at a conference in the past year.
“So I was able to make some more personal connections and maybe have some better letters of support this time,” Fisher said.
Even with grant money — $400,000 from Nebraska Game and Parks, $250,000 from Lancaster County’s COVID relief funds, $820,000 from GWAFF, $100,000 from a Horizon Bank donation matching initiative and the $562,000 from DED — the project is still short of its fundraising goal.
To get the ball rolling on the project, the Waverly City Council last year approved a measure to allow the city to harness the sales tax increase already in place for the voter-approved $3.5 million bond to pay for additional expenses.
Fisher said the existing half-cent sales tax increase is producing more receipts than are needed to pay off the original bond during its 15-year life span. The excess receipts will continue to pay for a second $1.5 million bond.
The bond will pay for further construction not covered in the city’s contract with Kansas-based Carrothers Construction, who started work on the aquatic center last October. Such additional items, Fisher said, include paving the parking lot and road running through Wayne Park to the new facility, demolition of the existing Waverly pool and relocating the baseball field that was displaced to make way for the aquatic center.
However, Fisher said the new grant money will allow the city to again include a pair of items that were cut from designs during the value engineering phase — overhead lighting for nighttime swimming and starting blocks for swim races.
Fisher said construction is still on track for a July grand opening, and the facility’s three buildings are nearly finished.
Meanwhile, GWAFF President Abbey Pascoe said her organization will continue its fundraising efforts after donating $820,000 to the project last month.
“We want to raise as much money as we can privately or through these grants so we have less money to bond,” Pascoe said. “GWAFF committed to raising $1 million, and we’re close.”
The new aquatic center will feature two sets of slides, a zero-entry pool, a lazy river, two diving boards, water features and multiple awnings to provide shade. It will replace the city’s current municipal pool, which was built in the 1970s, has half the capacity of the new pool and uses what workers say are faulty slides and water filtration systems.
