Paso Robles schools spent $1 million on 2 Italian pools. Now one is up for auction
In 2018, the Paso Robles school district spent nearly $1 million to buy two Italian-built stainless steel pools that it hoped would become the centerpiece of the largest high school aquatic center in San Luis Obispo County.
Four years later, the district is trying to sell one of those pools at auction.
The change in ambitions came after the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District was forced to scale back its plans amid a major budget shortfall and construction bids that came in far higher than expected.
The pool up for sale is an unused 25-meter-by-25-yard stainless steel Myrtha warm-up and teaching pool with a maximum depth of 5 feet.
The pool was originally purchased for about $278,000 in 2018 and is being auctioned off on the website GovDeals.com. The starting bid is set at $50,000 as of Monday, and the auction is set to end on May 20 at 1 p.m.
Auctioning off the pool will bring the school district one step closer to completing its long-delayed aquatic complex at Paso Robles High School.
The Paso Robles school district will keep the other pool, a 50-meter-by-25-yard competition pool with a maximum depth of 7 feet. However, the district plans to scale down that pool, originally bought for about $687,000 in 2018, to a more affordable size of 38 meters by 25 yards.
The smaller pool will make building the aquatic complex more affordable, said district assistant superintendent of business services Brad Pawlowski.
Even at 38 meters, however, it would still be the longest high school pool in the county.
The district’s board recently directed staff to essentially start the planning process for the aquatic complex all over from the beginning.
Now, the district is seeking an architect to design the complex around the smaller competition pool, Pawlowski said.
Once that architect is found and plans approved, the district will then seek bids for construction of the complex, all of which will be up for board approval.
How plans for Paso Robles pool complex have changed
The district originally planned for an elaborate aquatic complex that would have included the pools plus a deck, bleachers, a concession stand, locker rooms, restrooms, a pool equipment room and a solar water heating system — at a likely cost of at least $10.57 million.
Funding would have come from a 2016 bond measure that specified Paso Robles schools would seek “private donations and joint-use funding to complete the project,” a strategy not attempted by other local districts.
But in January 2019, contractor bids for the full project came in at more than $12 million.
Not long after, the district’s financial woes forced it to effectively shelve the process indefinitely.
Now, it’s hoping to return with a more modest proposal on a budget of about $6.6 million, of which $2.9 million remains unfunded.
The new center is estimated to cost $225,000 annually to operate, down from $400,000 in 2019.
This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 2:32 PM.
