Plans: The pool at the Costantino Recreation Center is scheduled to close in June due to rising operational costs, necessary repairs
By Emily Fitzgerald and Dylan Reubenking
Thurston Chronicle
Two months after The Evergreen State College announced that it would close its pool at the end of June due to “significant ongoing operating and infrastructure costs,” the college is not shutting the door entirely on the possibility of re-opening the facility.
The Evergreen State College plans to close the pool when its current school district contracts end at the end of June. According to local high school swimming coaches, however, the original planned closure date of June 30 has been moved up to June 6.
The college will not make long-term decisions for the pool for at least another year and “the option of re-opening the pool remains on the table,” Evergreen leaders said in a prepared written statement.
Four high school swim programs and a variety of events and programs would be affected by the closure of the pool, located at Evergreen’s Costantino Recreation Center.
Finances
The Evergreen State College announced its intention to close the pool in March, citing a need to cut operating costs due to a projected multi-million-dollar budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year.
“Rising operational costs, enrollment pressures across higher education, and limited revenue growth require us to make disciplined decisions about how we allocate our resources,” Interim Chief Financial Officer John Reed said in a March letter to The Evergreen State College community.
To further cut costs, Evergreen is restructuring its bookstore to discontinue on-site sales of physical textbooks, instead transferring those services to a third-party course materials provider.
The restructuring will result in multiple staff positions being eliminated, Reed stated.
“We understand that the pool and bookstore are part of the fabric of campus life. But our foremost responsibility is to protect Evergreen’s core mission: delivering an exceptional academic experience, supporting student success, and ensuring the institution’s long-term sustainability,” Reed stated.
Evergreen leaders said keeping the pool open past June would require a $1 million capital investment, plus a plan to pay $250,000 per year in operating costs.
“Long-term, the pool will require a more complete overhaul,” the Evergreen executive leadership team said in a prepared statement.
In the initial announcement that Evergreen would close its pool in June, Reed cited a $60,000 immediate repair — replacing the pool drains — the state Department of Health is requiring that Evergreen make to meet current health and safety standards.
“Because these required upgrades are mandatory and must be completed in the near term to continue operating the facility, and given the pool’s significant ongoing operating costs alongside the college’s broader budget challenges, this additional $60,000 mandated expense underscores the financial realities behind our decision to close the facility at the end of June, allowing us to reduce expenses and prioritize resources that directly support instruction and student success,” Reed wrote in March.
When the initial announcement of the pool’s closure was released, Olympia High School head swim coach Henry Valz said his group, the Tumwater Olympia Pool Supporters, offered that week to pitch in the $60,000 to cover the cost of the immediate repairs, with the hope of keeping the pool open at least through the summer.
According to Valz, Evergreen’s leadership not only turned down the offer, but it moved the goalpost significantly.
“They responded with, ‘Well, it’s not $60,000. It’s a million.’ And that was a moment of, man, who are we dealing with?” Valz said. “Because the initial announcement was $60,000 and they were gonna close the pool.”
Evergreen leaders later clarified that just covering that $60,000 repair wouldn’t be enough to keep the pool open.
“Even if we complete that repair, the pool would still rely on a very fragile, aging mechanical system that is at high risk of catastrophic failure sometime in the relatively near future,” Evergreen representatives stated.
While student athletes say there are no noticeable functional problems with the pool that could prevent them from competing in the short term, college leaders laid out six pricey repairs that they said were “needed to reduce the risk of catastrophic failure.”
Those repairs include the mandatory pool drain replacement, as well as replacing steam heat exchangers, piping, electrical components, control systems, pumps and the ceiling system.
Evergreen estimates those repairs will cost between $955,000 and $985,000.
Valz and his group came back to Evergreen and told the college’s leadership that, in time, it believed it could raise the $1 million price tag necessary to keep the pool open.
Again, Valz said, Evergreen bumped the number up, this time to $2 million. Valz contends with that amount.
“We’re talking to aquatics facilities throughout Washington, and they say that they could theoretically come up with that $2 million amount, but that’s exceptionally out of the ordinary. They have some pumps that they need replaced eventually. It’s really important to note: the pool is working 100% fine right now,” Valz said. “It’s in incredible physical shape. But, eventually, every single item in a pool needs to be replaced. It’s like maintaining a car. They’ve essentially given us the price tag of what it would cost to replace everything, but the pool is still running just fine right now.”
Brent Barnes, the treasurer for the Pacific Northwest Association of Master’s Swimmers and a former member of the City of Olympia’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, also said the pool is “in great shape for as old as it is.” He noted that the college’s 2025-2035 Ten-Year Capital Plan makes no mention of any planned work on the pool.
That $2 million price tag stems from a 2014 estimate for a complete refurbishment of the pool, which Evergreen leaders said the pool is “overdue” for. An updated estimate would be needed to account for inflation.
Impact on local high school swim programs
Four Thurston County high schools — Capital High School, Olympia High School, Tumwater High School and Black Hills High School — use the 25-yard, 11-lane Evergreen pool for its home swim meets and its practices during the fall and winter seasons. The two Olympia School District programs have boys and girls teams, while the two Tumwater School District programs solely have girls teams. Roughly 200 student athletes between the six programs utilize the facility.
Local swim coaches and student athletes expressed shock, confusion and sadness upon hearing the news of the Evergreen administration’s decision to close the pool. As a result of the impending closure of the Evergreen pool, the four high schools would be forced to use the three pools used by North Thurston Public Schools high school swim teams, sharing practices with the Lacey schools. North Thurston High School’s pool features five lanes with a diving board in the middle, while Timberline and River Ridge each have six-lane pools.
With the Olympia and Tumwater schools sharing pools much smaller than Evergreen’s with other schools during practices, student athletes and coaches say that they wouldn’t get out of the pool and be ready to leave practice until 9 p.m. Transportation also becomes a concern, as many Capital and Olympia swimmers already reside near Evergreen’s pool but would now have to add 20 to 30 minutes to their commute time to get to the Lacey pools and back.
In addition, the swim programs affected by the Evergreen pool’s closure would see home meets reduced or eliminated due to the rivaling schedules with the host school. In Olympia’s case, as a member of the 4A South Puget Sound League, almost none of its swim meets would be in Thurston County, as it shares a league with schools in Puyallup, Sumner, University Place, and Port Orchard, among other locations. Student athletes report that they would have to miss school and would lose time for homework with the more rigorous schedule between practices and swim meets.
Perhaps the biggest loss for the swim teams that use the Evergreen pool is that they would have to cut their roster size down to adjust to the reduction in lanes. Valz, the head coach of the Olympia High School swim program for five years, said Olympia has proudly produced a “no-cut program” for the entirety of its 70-year existence. Due to lane restrictions, Olympia may be forced to cut its boys team, which featured between 50 and 60 swimmers last season, in half, if not more. The 2025 Olympia girls team featured between 30 and 35 swimmers.
“It’s really devastating to the coaches because part of the reason we coach is that everybody swims,” Valz said. “To become a cut sport would really be tough on our programs and kind of undercut what we believe in.”
Olympia sophomores Keenan Wong and Kaden Hentschel and Olympia Regional Learning Academy eighth grader Keegan Hentschel expressed sadness upon hearing the news of Evergreen’s decision to close the pool. Wong has used the pool since he was in third grade and was looking forward to a great senior season next winter, which will likely look much different.
“I was very shocked and distraught. I was a little bit sad because I was really expecting to have a great season next year,” he said. “Last season, I had two league times, and I was really hoping for next year that I’d be able to get a districts time. If we don’t get the facility back, then that really throws a wrench in my plans.”
Both Kaden Hentchel and Olympia junior girls swim captain Nastasia Moniodis explained that the opportunity for first-time swimmers to learn and flourish into competitive swimmers will be hindered if Olympia has to cut down its roster due to the closure of the pool.
Students also said the roster reduction would harm impactful relationships and bonds created through swimming. For example, Wong and the Hentschel brothers met through swimming and have built a strong friendship, one that saw them travel to Hawaii together for spring break earlier this month.
“We’re all in this together. We help each other out. We want to build on each other’s improvements and hype each other up so we can get to the times we want,” Wong said. “The whole swim team is very supportive and one big family within the school.”
“If the pool closes, we’d cut the team in half. Everyone has friends, and it’s a great community. We have team dinners and spaghetti feeds,” Moniodis added. “It would cut out that interaction and team bonding and friendships. My fellow swimmers are like a second family. We swim laps on the weekends. They know the pain you go through in practice, but we make it fun.”
Aside from the high school swim seasons, the Evergreen pool was also scheduled to host the Washington State Senior Games for swimmers aged 50 and over, as well as a free swim and dive camp for Thurston County children this summer. The swim camp was a smashing success last year, hosting nearly 200 children, according to Valz, who added that Evergreen’s pool is the only one in the area that can contain that demand. The status of where those will be located is now up in the air.
The Thurston Olympians Swim Club, which also utilizes the Evergreen pool, would likely move to North Thurston High School’s pool, Valz said.
The Tumwater Olympia Pool Supporters are a “loose-knit” group of swimmers that, according to Valz, “recognize that the pool facilities in Thurston County aren’t adequate.” The group’s members have communicated with the cities of Olympia and Tumwater, the Port of Olympia, the Thurston County Board of Commissioners, local school districts and local state legislators about the pool’s closure.
Valz said state legislators were “taken aback” by Evergreen closing its pool, particularly because the state has given the college money to upgrade the pool facility in the last five years. Valz and a group of pool supporters visited the capitol the day after the announcement to speak to legislators, and he believes there is “bipartisan support for helping move the pool forward,” whether it be in a public-private partnership or another option.
“The Evergreen State College was given a pool by the taxpayers of Washington state. It is the most valuable public asset in Thurston County. When you talk about replacement costs, it is the most valuable public asset,” Valz said. “All we’re really asking is just for more time to be able to get our community partners together and to get to the legislature and say, ‘Here is a solution. There are many possible solutions to this problem. We can make this work, but not if you shut us out in less than 60 days.’”
Moniodis said she has sent letters to Gov. Bob Ferguson, state legislators, Olympia and Tumwater city councilors, parks and recreation staff, and Evergreen President John Carmichael, and she spoke at an Olympia School Board meeting. Keegan Hentschel and Wong also spoke at a school board meeting.
Writing on the wall
While some community members expressed surprise about the announcement of the pool’s closure, others believe it was an inevitable decision, citing the college’s actions toward other community facilities and programs.
Valz said The Evergreen State College has been “driving out” aquatics programs for nearly a decade while simultaneously spending money on its own athletic programs, including recently increasing its percentage of student athletes receiving athletic scholarships. While Evergreen has not had a sanctioned swimming program for over 30 years, the college had two swim clubs using the pool, one of which has been shut down, Valz said.
“They’re trying to grow their athletics programs while shutting themselves off from the community and not allowing the community to use any of their facilities,” he said. “Soon, literally none of their facilities will be open to the community.”
Valz also claimed that Evergreen has been unwilling to allow swimming, water polo and diving programs outside of the high school teams it contracts with to use the pool. In addition, he said community members have asked for meetings with Carmichael and with the board of trustees since the day of the announcement but have not received a response.
“We’ve tried to rent it the last four summers and have been told no,” he said. “We’re trying to give them $10,000 or more, and they’re saying, ‘No, you can’t use our facility.’ They’re willing to meet with the cities and the school boards, but they’re not willing to really meet with the people who are most involved with the decision that they’ve made.”
Capital boys swim coach Wes Murry called out the “contradictions” from Evergreen leadership, as well as local city councils, in spending money during budget deficits while community assets are shut down. He highlighted Evergreen’s closure of its performing arts center and the nearby construction of a “smoking pavilion,” as well as the City of Olympia building a statue near the skate park amid a multi-million dollar budget deficit.
“This is a very intense community, Olympia as a whole. If they think that the people involved are going to just go quietly, that’s not going to happen. If they shut down the facility, there’s going to be all hell that comes loose from that,” Murry said. “This is our last tie to that campus. It’s a beautiful campus. If they’re just taking money whenever they can and not fixing Evergreen itself, people are going to hold them accountable.”
‘Save the Evergreen Pool’ meeting and campaign
On Tuesday, April 14, community members packed Evergreen’s Purce Hall for a student-driven gathering to discuss the pool’s closure and the next steps as the “Save the Evergreen Pool” campaign began to reach an increasing number of community members.
As of Monday, April 27, over 4,200 people signed a petition to keep The Evergreen State College pool open. Signs with the phrase “Save the Evergreen Pool” decorated the outside of the building and were handed out during the meeting. Thurston County GOP Party Chair Corey Gauny attended and spoke in support of saving the pool. Karen Fraser, Evergreen board of trustee member, attended the meeting but did not speak.
Valz spoke at the meeting, and Evergreen students and Costantino Recreation Center staffers Ollie Askew and Laef Wallace followed to highlight how many students didn’t know that the pool was accessible to them because of what they called poor advertising from the college. Wallace explained that there is still plenty of usage from community members, as statistics show that the usage from the previous quarter to this quarter has been “an insane jump,” he said.
“Having significantly more people show up to the pool would put more pressure on the school to keep it open,” Wallace said.
Student athletes Maddie Morgan and Marek Wynn explained from the crowd that they use the pool often for recovery, while others offered testimonies of how the pool has brought them an opportunity to progress from injuries, health problems and disabilities. One pool user said they could barely walk when they arrived on campus in the fall and can now move around campus without their cane on occasion because of the pool. Another student said they were recently hospitalized with a severe anemic episode and had lost a significant amount of muscle mass but have slowly been rebuilding muscle mass by using the pool.
As for what’s next in the campaign, community members plan to attend the 22nd Legislative District town hall Wednesday, April 29 at the Columbia Center in Olympia. Pool supporters plan to hold a rally outside with signs to carry into the event, according to an email sent to supporters.
Additionally, supporters will gather at the Evergreen pool on Tuesday, May 12 for a “Pack the Pool” event to show support for the pool and the aquatics community. The Evergreen Board of Trustees also has a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, at the Tacoma Evergreen campus, and pool supporters have expressed interest in attending despite frustration with the board holding a meeting at a crucial time away from the main campus.
In an email to supporters, it was announced that community groups have meetings scheduled with Carmichael.
To learn more about the campaign, visit the public “Save the Evergreen State College Pool” Facebook group at https://tinyurl.com/3c23kjmc.
Possible regional solution
While Evergreen leaders have not yet decided its pool’s ultimate fate, they said the college “is eager to participate in a regional planning option for public aquatics facilities.”
The City of Olympia explored construction of a regional aquatics center between 2018 and 2023, but lacked support from regional partners, including Thurston County and the cities of Lacey and Tumwater, according to reporting by The Olympian at the time.
Initial feasibility studies didn’t include anticipated construction costs, but estimated building operations to cost upward of $2.3 million. Community members have expressed support for the idea of a regional aquatics center in addition to the existing pools in Thurston County, including Evergreen’s, but are concerned with the price tag and potentially decades-long timeline for construction.
The project has made little progress since 2023, but Evergreen leaders said they hope their pool’s impending closure will reignite that effort.
“We are personally hopeful that this can be a catalyst for a community response that brings us a regional aquatics solution. And if the Evergreen pool can be part of that solution, we would be thrilled,” Evergreen leaders stated.
Representatives from Thurston County and the City of Olympia met with Evergreen State College and other local partners in early April to discuss the pool’s closure, and local leaders are continuing to have conversations about how to make a regional aquatic center a reality.
But, as of late April, there were no concrete plans for a regional aquatics solution.
