County aims for better quality of life with new aquatic center

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — County officials and project participants gathered Thursday morning for a ceremonial groundbreaking at the location of the future Tommy Stalnaker Aquatic Center, what will be a more than 38,000 square foot facility with over 15,000 square feet of swimming area located across from Freedom Field on Cohen Walker Drive. Parties involved are anticipating completion sometime during Fall 2023.

Dr. Mark Scott, county superintendent of schools, mentioned his appreciation of the support of the facility from local leadership in government as well as area citizens and their tax dollars.

“I certainly want to say ‘thank you’ to the government entities in Houston County for being such great, collaborative partners and working together to bring this to our community,” Scott said. ” … To you all, I say ‘thank you’ for your cooperation, your collaboration and your support for quality of life in Houston County, and this is something that will improve the quality of life to the citizens of Houston County. I’d like to also say — I know the chairman will probably say that as well — but thank you to our taxpayers for supporting the needs of our community and continuing to support the SPLOST. We’re very honored to have that support.”

He added that the facility’s over 15,000 square feet of pool area would mostly be 50-meter pool with 20 25-yard lanes.

“That was one of the things that we really heard from our swim people is, ‘If we don’t even have a building, we need a 50-meter pool,’” Scott said. “And so that was something we were able to deliver [on].”

Jarred Reneau, director of recreation for the City of Warner Robins, spoke on what the facility, the process leading up to the groundbreaking and the parties involved in that process meant to him.

“As you know, over the past six years, the City of Warner Robins has put in over $35 million worth of projects — and to learn and just watch other entities and how they do business, I’ve learned a lot through this,” Reneau said. “So with that, thank y’all for the leadership that y’all have shown.

“Thank you for what you’ve been doing for the community. And last but not least, as I’ve always said, this project is going to be [benefitting] the quality of life. It’s been touched on many of times, and I just think this is another addition that the citizens of Houston County are going to be able to enjoy. And it’s just going to be great to see lives changed through this facility throughout the years.”

Dr. Christopher Brown, assistant superintendent of human resources and district operations for the school district, said the facility would provide an appropriate venue for local high school athletes and the surrounding community.

“The Houston County Aquatic Center will be a tremendous asset for our community,” Brown said. “Not only will it provide additional recreational activities for our residents, it will impact our local economy through the competitive swimming events that will be hosted here. Many people have been involved in making this facility a reality, and it’s exciting to see construction begin.”

County Commissioner Chairman Tommy Stalnaker said the facility would make for the first public swimming pool built in the county in over 50 years. He jokingly issued a challenge for the respective builders of the facility to make it operational by this time next year.

He also spoke on a companion building to come located next to the swimming facility, a 3,000-seat performing arts center already incorporated into the SPLOST fund recently passed by local governments.

Warner Robins Mayor LaRhonda Patrick spoke on the services to be offered at the new aquatic center.

“At the swim facility, it will have training opportunities, classes for swimming safety, recreational use, daily lap swims,” she said. “It’ll be open to the public to come in and swim, learn to swim, find out how to be safe while swimming — also training opportunities, potentially, for our public safety [groups], for health and rescue, learning how to scuba dive inside of our facilities.”

Shortly following this, Dr. Scott said the facility would be named in honor of Chairman Stalnaker. The chairman said this project was the one among all of the other SPLOST projects that meant the most to him.

“There’s a lot of people that deserve that,” Stalnaker said. “My name is only going to carry the other 158,000 peoples’ names along with it because I believe in the unity, and I am humbled and honored to have this bestowed upon me.”

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