The two long-term leases the Baltimore County Council approved June 1 were for only $1 a year.

But together, they pave the way for a new private swim club for Towson on the northwest corner of Bosley Avenue and Towsontown Boulevard, as well as the conversion of the historic Warden’s Building beside it into office space and possibly a café.

Two separate partnerships would be involved in the transformation of the corner — the former home of the Baltimore County Detention Center.

Towson Jail Associates LLC, an Azola Companies venture headed by Martin Azola, an expert in design and adaptive reuse of historic buildings, was granted one of the leases.

Towson Swim Center LLC, a group of Towson residents that has fought for an outdoor pool on the 1.8-acre site for more than three years, was granted the other.

The swim group would like to have the pool open by Memorial Day of next year, said West Towson resident Mike Ertel, who was instrumental in forming the group.

“But it would require shovels in the ground by October,” he said, “so we are talking more realistically about Memorial Day of 2011.”

The county will be spared the expense of maintaining the pool site, which once housed the former county jail.

Similarly, the county was going to have to pay $700,000 to stabilize the old Warden’s building, Ertel said. Now that Azola has taken control of that structure, the county will be spared that expense.

Both sites will produce additional revenue for the county as well. Each partnership will pay more than $6,000 per year as a payment in lieu of property taxes, according to the lease. That amount will automatically increase by 3 percent each year.

The swim center lease has an initial term of 25 years with three successive 25-year renewals.

The lease on the Warden’s Building is for an initial term of 40 years with three consecutive 20-year renewals.

Azola could not be reached for comment, but Ertel said his group will now ramp up efforts to reach out to neighborhoods in the vicinity to find potential members willing and able to help pay for the construction of a swim club. The estimated cost, he said, is about $1 million.

The pool would operate as a private nonprofit requiring users to have memberships, Ertel said, but there would be exceptions to serve other members of the public since the site is public property.

The facility will feature a T-shaped or L-shaped Olympic-size pool, a baby pool, space where people can sit on chairs or lie on blankets and parking for 45 vehicles as well as arrangements for additional nearby parking.

The pool would be run by a management company, he said. It would be open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, usually from about 11 a.m. to about 8 p.m.

Membership would be open to residents of all neighborhoods, even neighborhoods in the city, on a first-come first-served basis.

"You need larger demographics to run a pool,” he said. “Neighborhoods turn over and they get old.”

Ertel’s group hasn’t worked out the exact numbers yet, he said. But the time frame for opening the pool would depend on how long it takes to sign up between 350 and 450 members who are willing to pay a charter fee of $2,500 to $,3,000, as well as an annual fee of $450 to $550 per summer.

He recalls when his group did an informal straw poll two years ago that some residents said they would be interested but would wait until the pool was built, he said.

“If everybody does that, it won’t get built,” he said. “Somebody’s going to have to jump in the water first.”

Since the county is making the land available, “we want to give something back,” Ertel said. “The reality is that it will be an amenity for the community at large.”

Ertel said concepts the pool LLC is considering include:

•Extending “super discounted” memberships to members of the nearby Bykota Senior Center;

•Allowing the Ridge Ruxton School’s summer campers to use the pool on certain days;

•Holding week-long sessions during which pool members give swimming lessons to kids who don’t have access to a pool.  “This might save somebody’s life,” Ertel said.

•Permitting kids involved in certain Recreation Council programs to use the facility at designated times.

“We think it’s a good deal,” Ertel said. It won’t be there just to benefit a lot of rich people, like some have said.

“It will add a nice flair to Towson and it will be a place for people to congregate and have fun.”

Not everybody is happy about the pool. As she has from the beginning, Riderwood Hills Community Association board member  Corinne Becker opposed the idea.

“I think it’s patronizing people who can afford to belong to a private club,” she said, “and it doesn’t belong on public property, which could better be used to serve all the citizens of Baltimore County.”

But 5th District Councilman Vince Gardina, who represents Towson, approved the leases along with the rest of the council.

“As long as the pool is open to some community use, I have no reservations about it,” he said.

For questions or information about the pool e-mail towsonpool@gmail.com, “and somebody will get back to you as soon as time permits,” Ertel said.

---

user comments (0)