Property Consolidation
As the city considers signing over the Aquatic and Tennis Centers to the New U, participants worry about access
When word got out recently that the city was talking with officials at Augusta State University (ASU) and Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) about the possibility of the new, combined university 
taking over at least some control of the both the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, it sent a shockwave through Augusta’s athletic community, particularly its highly structured competitive swim programs.
“
Obviously, our biggest concern with our program would be continued access to the Aquatic Center,” says Adam Byars, program director and head coach of the Aiken-Augusta Swim League (ASL). “It’s the only 50-meter pool within 60 miles, probably.”
While the majority of his swimmers practice at the Aquatic Center, the program averages about 280 swimmers, which means some swim at USC-Aiken and at Riverwood Plantation in Evans, where an inflatable dome was erected a few years ago to allow winter use.
With that many swimmers, contemplating any change in plans can be daunting, but the idea of new management — and management with a built-in audience and allegiances different than the city’s — is particularly unsettling.
Administrator Fred Russell admitted that the potential for a deal was being explored.
“
We’ve had some conversations with the university about the potential for them either taking that over in some shape or form or contributing to its operation or something of that nature,” he said. “As they
grow the new university, there are things they need that they don’t have. So we’ve been talking about whether or not it would be appropriate for them to play some role.”
Stressing that the talks are very preliminary, Russell said the two athletic centers represent a significant yearly investment that he would like to, at least in some part, defer.
“
Between the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, the budget is probably at $1 million,” he said. “Right at $900,000 or so, and if we could figure out a way to have the university contribute to that or some way for them to take on some of the cost of operations and maintenance — or even join up with us — then I think that seems to be a smart conversation at this point.”
Though such a relationship might be daunting for those directly impacted, there is already plenty of sharing going on.
“
At one time we managed the Newman Tennis Center, and in partnership with the city we’ve used the Newman Tennis Center as the home of the Jaguars,” said ASU Athletic Director Clint Bryant. “And I know from an academic standpoint, they’ve put some classes at the center and continue to teach classes from a health and kinesiology standpoint. The New U is talking about partnering and continuing to partner with the city as far as the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, and I think the bottom line is we’re just trying to look at how that might happen.”
Most urban institutions work hand in hand with the municipalities they are in, he said.
“
From our standpoint, we offer men’s and women’s tennis and plan on continuing that as we move to the New U,” he said. “We don’t offer swimming or diving or water polo at this time, but that’s not to say that the future might bring some additional sports sponsorships, depending on how our enrollment grows and the interest of our students as we try to determine what sports to add.”
At one time, ASU had a pool, but it’s no longer operational, and while GHSU buys passes to the Aquatic Center and sells them to its students, there’s no doubting the desirability of having greater control.
“
Like anyone else, you’ve got to go out and look at what’s in the best interest of the university,” Bryant said. “And I think that’s what the people at both Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University are trying to figure out.”
While Russell insisted any deal made with the new university would be contingent on maintaining an equal or greater amount of public access, given recent history, public uneasiness is understandable.
On one hand, there is the municipal golf course, known as the Patch, which is now operated by the Patch of Augusta, a Scottish-based company. While the course consistently lost money when run by the city, critics of the privatization say the new arrangement has changed the culture of the course and altered the established access enjoyed by regulars.
On the other hand, there are the actions of the new university — more specifically GHSU — which some feel has displayed imperialistic overtones since Dr. Ricardo Azziz took the helm. Not only has the university snatched up the Golf and Gardens property, recognized as the most valuable piece of land in downtown Augusta and long desired by the mayor as the site of a new downtown baseball stadium, it has successfully campaigned to change the look of Laney Walker Boulevard and meddled with a proposed Walmart Neighborhood Market slated for the 15th Street area near Kroger.
With consolidation, the perception is that Azziz and GHSU has gobbled up ASU at a time when ASU was flexing muscles of its own, pushing forward with a Wrightsboro Road expansion while contemplating a downtown presence of its own.
In the face of that kind of determined and focused growth, it’s understandable why some would question whether or not a guarantee to grant continued public access would remain a priority to either party.
Even without adding a university-sized stake in the Aquatic Center, competition for lanes during the key after-school hours is keen.
“
We have two year-round swim teams and right now we’re working with 13 local high schools,” said Aquatics Supervisor Roger Wexler. “If you’ve got a swim team, you’re pretty much here.”
Basically, the hours from 3 to 8 p.m. are the prime time, though Wexler said other programming exists throughout the day, including water fitness and, during the summer, lots and lots of swimming lessons. And even though the high school teams and the two swim teams are all competing for the same limited space at the same time, Wexler said he keeps one or two lanes open for whatever public swimmers might want to use the pool during those prime hours.
Those weekday hours aren’t the only times the pool is busy, however.
“
We encompass ASL and Greater Augusta Swimming (GAS) meets, but we also have the high school meets from both Georgia and South Carolina,” Wexler said. “I think we have about 41 days during the year that we’re exclusively on swim meets, and there’s a lot of economic impact there for the city of Augusta.”
Randy DuTeau, events manager for the Augusta Sports Council, concurs.
“
Last year, we worked with ASL on a state youth swim competition that brought in roughly 850 swimmers for a four-day swim meet,” he said. “The thing about a meet like that is, these kids come in with Mom and Dad and brothers and sisters, so when you’re factoring the economic impact, you don’t just look at 850 swimmers. It actually ends up being pretty significant.”
One meet, big impact.
“
The scorecard that we had — we were looking at around 2,000 room nights for that swim competition,” he said. “The economic impact exceeded $500,000.”
Though the Augusta Sports Council doesn’t work with the swim clubs on every meet — ASL alone holds three major home meets every year — DuTeau said he’s working with the group on a Paralympics swim meet for the fall.
“
This year, the room nights will probably be good, and we feel like it will be significant to the community, but at the same time, it’s one of those things that you launch this year and you get some great PR out of it,” he said. “You get the backing of U.S. Paralympics and then it only grows.”
The kids who participate in the swim clubs don’t just swim a few laps and leave, either. Byars said that during the school year, ASL swimmers, who range in age from seven to seniors in high school, practice close to 20 hours a week.
Despite the worries, Byars said that any movement toward the new university resurrecting ASU’s old swim team would be a good thing, considering the state of competitive swimming in the university system.
“
There’s something like 8,000 swimmers in Georgia swimming, and those options to swim are pretty limited,” he said. “In the state of Georgia, the only state schools that have swimming programs are Georgia, Georgia Tech and then Georgia Southern, which has a woman’s team.”
According to DuTeau, university participation in a swimming venue isn’t new and often it isn’t a problem to the greater swimming population.
“
I can tell you that Georgia Tech, who inherited the Olympic Aquatic Center, hosts a number of college events, but at the same time they are doing a lot of the USA Swimming meets,” he said. “Just from my understanding, it’s been a great relationship.”
For now, however, Augusta’s swimmers and tennis players are taking a wait and see approach.
“
Everything’s on the table except for a reduction of public use,” Russell said. “That’s a deal breaker.”You Might Also Like:
taking over at least some control of the both the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, it sent a shockwave through Augusta’s athletic community, particularly its highly structured competitive swim programs.
“Obviously, our biggest concern with our program would be continued access to the Aquatic Center,” says Adam Byars, program director and head coach of the Aiken-Augusta Swim League (ASL). “It’s the only 50-meter pool within 60 miles, probably.”
While the majority of his swimmers practice at the Aquatic Center, the program averages about 280 swimmers, which means some swim at USC-Aiken and at Riverwood Plantation in Evans, where an inflatable dome was erected a few years ago to allow winter use.
With that many swimmers, contemplating any change in plans can be daunting, but the idea of new management — and management with a built-in audience and allegiances different than the city’s — is particularly unsettling.
Administrator Fred Russell admitted that the potential for a deal was being explored.
“We’ve had some conversations with the university about the potential for them either taking that over in some shape or form or contributing to its operation or something of that nature,” he said. “As they
grow the new university, there are things they need that they don’t have. So we’ve been talking about whether or not it would be appropriate for them to play some role.”
Stressing that the talks are very preliminary, Russell said the two athletic centers represent a significant yearly investment that he would like to, at least in some part, defer.
“Between the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, the budget is probably at $1 million,” he said. “Right at $900,000 or so, and if we could figure out a way to have the university contribute to that or some way for them to take on some of the cost of operations and maintenance — or even join up with us — then I think that seems to be a smart conversation at this point.”
Though such a relationship might be daunting for those directly impacted, there is already plenty of sharing going on.
“At one time we managed the Newman Tennis Center, and in partnership with the city we’ve used the Newman Tennis Center as the home of the Jaguars,” said ASU Athletic Director Clint Bryant. “And I know from an academic standpoint, they’ve put some classes at the center and continue to teach classes from a health and kinesiology standpoint. The New U is talking about partnering and continuing to partner with the city as far as the Aquatic Center and the Newman Tennis Center, and I think the bottom line is we’re just trying to look at how that might happen.”
Most urban institutions work hand in hand with the municipalities they are in, he said.
“From our standpoint, we offer men’s and women’s tennis and plan on continuing that as we move to the New U,” he said. “We don’t offer swimming or diving or water polo at this time, but that’s not to say that the future might bring some additional sports sponsorships, depending on how our enrollment grows and the interest of our students as we try to determine what sports to add.”
At one time, ASU had a pool, but it’s no longer operational, and while GHSU buys passes to the Aquatic Center and sells them to its students, there’s no doubting the desirability of having greater control.
“Like anyone else, you’ve got to go out and look at what’s in the best interest of the university,” Bryant said. “And I think that’s what the people at both Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University are trying to figure out.”
While Russell insisted any deal made with the new university would be contingent on maintaining an equal or greater amount of public access, given recent history, public uneasiness is understandable.
On one hand, there is the municipal golf course, known as the Patch, which is now operated by the Patch of Augusta, a Scottish-based company. While the course consistently lost money when run by the city, critics of the privatization say the new arrangement has changed the culture of the course and altered the established access enjoyed by regulars.
On the other hand, there are the actions of the new university — more specifically GHSU — which some feel has displayed imperialistic overtones since Dr. Ricardo Azziz took the helm. Not only has the university snatched up the Golf and Gardens property, recognized as the most valuable piece of land in downtown Augusta and long desired by the mayor as the site of a new downtown baseball stadium, it has successfully campaigned to change the look of Laney Walker Boulevard and meddled with a proposed Walmart Neighborhood Market slated for the 15th Street area near Kroger.
With consolidation, the perception is that Azziz and GHSU has gobbled up ASU at a time when ASU was flexing muscles of its own, pushing forward with a Wrightsboro Road expansion while contemplating a downtown presence of its own.
In the face of that kind of determined and focused growth, it’s understandable why some would question whether or not a guarantee to grant continued public access would remain a priority to either party.
Even without adding a university-sized stake in the Aquatic Center, competition for lanes during the key after-school hours is keen.
“We have two year-round swim teams and right now we’re working with 13 local high schools,” said Aquatics Supervisor Roger Wexler. “If you’ve got a swim team, you’re pretty much here.”
Basically, the hours from 3 to 8 p.m. are the prime time, though Wexler said other programming exists throughout the day, including water fitness and, during the summer, lots and lots of swimming lessons. And even though the high school teams and the two swim teams are all competing for the same limited space at the same time, Wexler said he keeps one or two lanes open for whatever public swimmers might want to use the pool during those prime hours.
Those weekday hours aren’t the only times the pool is busy, however.
“We encompass ASL and Greater Augusta Swimming (GAS) meets, but we also have the high school meets from both Georgia and South Carolina,” Wexler said. “I think we have about 41 days during the year that we’re exclusively on swim meets, and there’s a lot of economic impact there for the city of Augusta.”
Randy DuTeau, events manager for the Augusta Sports Council, concurs.
“Last year, we worked with ASL on a state youth swim competition that brought in roughly 850 swimmers for a four-day swim meet,” he said. “The thing about a meet like that is, these kids come in with Mom and Dad and brothers and sisters, so when you’re factoring the economic impact, you don’t just look at 850 swimmers. It actually ends up being pretty significant.”
One meet, big impact.
“The scorecard that we had — we were looking at around 2,000 room nights for that swim competition,” he said. “The economic impact exceeded $500,000.”
Though the Augusta Sports Council doesn’t work with the swim clubs on every meet — ASL alone holds three major home meets every year — DuTeau said he’s working with the group on a Paralympics swim meet for the fall.
“This year, the room nights will probably be good, and we feel like it will be significant to the community, but at the same time, it’s one of those things that you launch this year and you get some great PR out of it,” he said. “You get the backing of U.S. Paralympics and then it only grows.”
The kids who participate in the swim clubs don’t just swim a few laps and leave, either. Byars said that during the school year, ASL swimmers, who range in age from seven to seniors in high school, practice close to 20 hours a week.
Despite the worries, Byars said that any movement toward the new university resurrecting ASU’s old swim team would be a good thing, considering the state of competitive swimming in the university system.
“There’s something like 8,000 swimmers in Georgia swimming, and those options to swim are pretty limited,” he said. “In the state of Georgia, the only state schools that have swimming programs are Georgia, Georgia Tech and then Georgia Southern, which has a woman’s team.”
According to DuTeau, university participation in a swimming venue isn’t new and often it isn’t a problem to the greater swimming population.
“I can tell you that Georgia Tech, who inherited the Olympic Aquatic Center, hosts a number of college events, but at the same time they are doing a lot of the USA Swimming meets,” he said. “Just from my understanding, it’s been a great relationship.”
For now, however, Augusta’s swimmers and tennis players are taking a wait and see approach.
“Everything’s on the table except for a reduction of public use,” Russell said. “That’s a deal breaker.”You Might Also Like:
