The Chehalis School Board voted unanimously during its regular meeting on Tuesday to move forward on the proposed Regional Lewis County Tennis and Wrestling Facility on Chehalis School District property behind the old Olympic Elementary School.
The facility is a joint project between the Lewis County Tennis Association (LCTA), the Chehalis Foundation and Chehalis Activators, with support from the Centralia Foundation and coaches from local tennis and wrestling teams, to increase access to tennis and wrestling for Lewis County residents and support student athletics.
Once open, the four-court building on Bishop Road will broaden opportunities for racket sport players across the region and provide a home for the Chehalis Middle School wrestling program.
The Chehalis School Board’s vote came after a work session Tuesday afternoon to give board members and district staff a chance to express concerns or ask questions, and to update the school board on what work has been done on the project since the district signed a memorandum of understanding with LCTA and the Chehalis Foundation to continue work on the project in May 2024.
“The purpose of this meeting is to put everything on the table. Everybody who thinks it's a good idea, bad idea, everybody who has questions, whatever — we want to hear, so that the board is fully informed,” Chehalis School Board President J. Vander Stoep said at the start of Tuesday’s work session.
Concerns and questions raised Tuesday included worry that the project wasn’t initiated with Lewis County youth in mind; concerns about student access to the facility; and questions about cost and maintenance.
The project itself began as a Chehalis Foundation proposal in the fall of 2020, with a steering committee consisting of Chehalis Foundation, Chehalis School District, LCTA and wrestling representatives forming in January 2021.
A site behind Chehalis Middle School was selected in early 2021, but an environmental study conducted later that year showed the site was inadequate for the project due to protected trees on the property, according to steering committee member Jeremy Corwin.
Project managers have since selected a field behind Olympic School as the new site.
The current proposal is for a four-court facility, with one court dedicated to wrestling for 10 weeks during their season, inside a fabric dome structure that would cost about $4 million to build.
“We can play tennis in a dome, and the cost is significantly cheaper than a metal building,” Corwin said.
Steve Ward, former vice president of finances and administration for Centralia College and the construction facilitator for the tennis and wrestling facility, spoke Tuesday on the benefits of a dome structure for the facility.
“We looked at 10 different structures, and we’ve narrowed it down to two,” Ward said, adding that the two being considered are a steel structure and a fabric dome structure.
The pricing on a steel structure turned out to be “way more than we could possibly raise,” Ward said, adding, “We would never have an indoor facility. We’d be spending all of our time raising money.”
Because of the prohibitive cost of a metal building, Ward said, “we went into what’s called a fabric tension building, which is basically a large tent, which is commonly used all over and there are several others in the Pacific Northwest that we visited.”
The dome structure would have a warranty of 20 to 25 years, and likely a usable lifespan up to 30 years.
The only regular maintenance that a standard dome structure would need is regular roof cleaning to get rid of algae and debris that can grow on the fabric material, but that can be mitigated by using a weather resistant Tedlar film in the initial construction.
Maintenance for the dome structure is estimated to cost about $10,000 a year without heating or cooling, which project organizers don’t anticipate needing.
Chehalis School District wrestling coach Kirby White confirmed Tuesday that a lack of heating shouldn’t be a problem for the wrestlers, as the mats selected for the facility have an operating temperature between 40 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
The interior temperature of the dome structure is anticipated to naturally be about 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature.
The new facility would be a stark improvement for the Chehalis School District wrestling program’s current practicing conditions, White said.
“A few years ago, the middle school wrestling team practiced in the old shop room at the middle school. That place was tight — we had wrestling mats that were literally rolled out and the place wasn’t big enough, so you had the mats rolling up the walls to contain them,” White said.
The team now practices at the Olympic School’s gym.
“It’s not a full size gym, though, so they are still pretty cramped,” White said.
Chehalis’ middle school wrestling program currently has about 70 participants total, and White expects the girls wrestling team to grow significantly in the next few years.
“If we want to grow our programs without turning the boys away or discouraging the girls from coming out, we need to grow our space. The facility we have right now is sufficient, but it’s not going to be sufficient for much longer,” White said.
The terms in the May 2024 memorandum of understanding included provisions ensuring that the facility would be available for middle school wrestling practice and for Centralia and Chehalis student tennis players to use during inclement weather.
“We are very passionate about this project,” said W.F. West tennis coach Megan Wellander, adding that rainouts and a limited ability to practice or hold matches indoors has been a significant detriment to both the boys and girls tennis teams.
“We are very successful with the very limited access that we have, and the success could just grow,” Wellander said.
The agreed terms within the May 2024 memorandum of understanding were that the Chehalis School District would not bear any of the facility’s construction or operational costs.
“We are not going to spend school district funds to build this or to operate, and so the burden is on the users and the stakeholders who are here tonight to show that it can be done, that it can be built without school district funds and operated without school district funds.”
As of Tuesday, approximately $3,319,000 in local pledges, a TransAlta Grant and a state appropriation grant had been earmarked for the project, with an additional $1 million available from the Ingwersen Committee subject to acceptable business operations, for a total estimated budget of $4,319,000 to build the facility.
“The funds that have been raised for this project will be pivoting from the Chehalis Foundation to the LCTA, and in order to take this on, we will be establishing a firm financial foundation underneath us,” said LCTA representative Trudi Pomeroy.
The United States Tennis Association Pacific Northwest (USTA PNW), which operates tennis facilities across the region, is willing to enter a 25-year contract with the Chehalis School District to run the facility, which includes managing the schedule and hosting community classes, at no cost to the Chehalis School District.
“What’s nice about our facilities is that we don’t necessarily measure them on ‘are we in the black or are we in the red,’ like, if we have a facility and accessibility, and accessibility is high, if we’re getting tons of kids and people playing in and running tournaments and events, and we’re relatively close to breaking even, that’s a success for us,” said Pat Dreves, general manager of facility operations and services for USTA PNW.
In addition to allowing Lewis County tennis players to participate in USTA-level tournaments and events, USTA PNW would cover part of the operating costs for the facility once it’s built, with LCTA covering the remaining estimated $25,000 a year in operating costs.
A $125,000 donation from an LCTA board member has already been set aside to cover operating costs of the facility for its first five years, Pomeroy said.
“We are committed to plans for ongoing fundraising. It’s also reasonable to believe that with the opening of a new facility, local interest in tennis will vastly increase and fundraising potential will grow as well,” Pomeroy said.
For updates about the facility, visit https://www.facebook.com/lewiscountytennis and https://chehalisfoundation.org/lcta-tennis-and-wrestling/.
