Group Hopes to Save Pearl Street Pool

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The effort to restore the Pearl Street Pool in downtown Centralia gained momentum Monday night. 

Local citizens met in the Centralia Timberland Library to hash out a plan to save the outdoor pool and possibly restart the nonprofit organization Friends in Need, which operated the pool for more than two decades before the city took back managment five years ago. 

“I feel the city government is 100 percent for us,” Pat Slusher, owner of Pat Slusher’s Coin Shop, said at the meeting.

Centralia resident Joyce Barnes, 79, the original chair of Friends in Need, led the meeting Monday night and expressed the importance of first starting an organization and suggested bringing back Friends in Need.

“FIN never dissolved,” Barnes said. “It just stopped collecting money.” 

The group of about 15 people agreed to investigate restarting FIN or possibly starting a new nonprofit altogether. Centralia residents Jeff Miller, Molly Logan and Anicee Calhoun each volunteered to join a leadership committee in the group. Slusher and Bill Ralph, a commercial landlord, both volunteered to start a finance committee as well.  

Once the organization developed, the group began brainstorming ideas for funding and support. 

Miller, the former Centralia Downtown Association president who owns the building at 105 S. Tower Ave., suggested the newly organized group partner with Centralia College to use the pool as an energy efficient lab, or the Centralia Armory for training exercises.

He also said the group should work with the downtown association. 

“The CDA should be a funding vehicle we should pursue,” Miller said. 



Centralia City Councilor Dan Henderson advised the group to work with the American Legion since the pool was first built as a war memorial in the 1950s. 

The citizen organization has until Aug. 31 to bring a proposal to the city council. After that, the council might pursue plans drawn up by the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board that would close the pool and use the space for a park, filled with a “splash pad,” basketball court and playground.

The group will meet again at 6 p.m. Monday, April 1, in the Centralia Timberland Library.

Community Development Director Emil Pierson said it would cost about $24,500 to make necessary repairs and maintenance in time to open the pool this summer. 

He said state inspectors would have to give approval in early April.

“It’s going to continue to deteriorate and water will show up in places it shouldn’t,” Pierson said. “But I don’t think it’s beyond repair by any means.” 

The Pearl Street Pool, built more than 60 years ago, has disintegrating concrete and broken tiles around its perimeter. The cover on the pool is not large enough to block sediment from building along with pool walls and the pump is failing. 

“You can bandage it all you want,” Pierson said. “But age catches up to you.” 

The city currently pays about $10,000 a year to maintain the closed pool. While it was last open in 2010, the city paid nearly $33,000 annually to run the pool, according to the city.

The total estimated cost for a park and playground project to replace the pool is $273,626, according to the city.