Arlington will advance a scaled-down version of an aquatic center at Long Bridge Park north of Crystal City, the county announced Tuesday.
The long-delayed project adjacent to Interstate 395 just shy of the 14th Street Bridge is expected to cost $63-$67 million, roughly $15 million less than the ambitious iteration first proposed in 2012. To get there, the county reduced the number of pools from three to two, cut the number of lobbies and circulation areas, merged the family and teaching pool into one, and eliminated the therapy pool and three dive towers.
Overall, the changes reduced the facility’s size by 37 percent to about 73,000 square feet. It is still expected to include a 50-meter pool, 300 spectator seats, two 700-square-foot “wet classrooms,” the 10,000-square-foot family/teaching pool, 10,200 square feet of health and fitness space and a 1,600-square-foot community room. The project will also include the construction of a 10.5-acre park.
The county will use, for the first time, the design-build method, where the chosen contractor is required to meet a budget chosen at the outset. Design-build controls costs, but it also limits the types of programs that can be built into the center.