Jasper Restarts Regional Wellness Center, Moves Forward With Phased Plan
The City of Jasper announced it has resumed engineering work on the Regional Wellness Center and will proceed with a scaled back, phased approach that officials say can be funded with resources already secured. The decision affects project scope, timing, and local financing, and will determine when amenities such as a gym complex and an aquatics center become available to residents.
City leaders told the Jasper Common Council on November 21 that work on the long discussed Regional Wellness Center is no longer paused. Mayor Dean Vonderheide said the project will advance in stages as money becomes available, and that the city has assembled a $25 million financial package to begin construction of a first phase.
“We have the funding available to do this stage one,” he said. “The financial stack is in place.” The package combines $5 million in city sources including tax increment financing and the economic development income tax, $15 million pledged through the Better Together campaign partnered with the Tri County YMCA, and a $5 million READi 2.0 grant. The city plans to issue a bond to cover remaining costs for the initial phase, and intends to repay that bond with revenue from the 1 percent Food and Beverage Tax that Jasper began collecting in January of 2024. Vonderheide told the council the city has been averaging over $600,000 annually in receipts from that tax.
The revised Phase 1 will include three gymnasiums rather than the previously planned four, alongside walking tracks, exercise areas, studios, a kitchen and gathering spaces. A second phase would add the aquatics center, which could be housed in a separate building on the same site. Officials said scaling the initial scope preserves key program elements while reducing up front capital demands and limiting calls for new tax measures. “(We) wouldn’t need any addition taxes or funding at this point,” he told the council.
The move reflects a change from earlier plans that envisioned a single facility with four gyms and an aquatics center at an estimated cost of $45 million. City leaders had paused that full scope while awaiting the fiscal impact of SBA 1, the recent property tax legislation, and while deciding to conserve certain funding sources such as TIF and Local Option Income Tax for other municipal needs.
City staff provided a tentative timeline for the phased effort, with conceptual plans targeted by the end of November or early December, project signage expected before year end, and site development and groundbreaking planned for April or May 2026. Bonding for remaining project costs is expected to coincide with that ground breaking.
Council members also received Parks and Recreation annual reports addressing pool operations and staffing challenges, golf course improvements and visitor analytics, and proposals for new fee structures and a parks capital fund. For Jasper residents the phased strategy aims to deliver tangible recreation infrastructure sooner while containing fiscal exposure, but it also shifts the timeline for a full aquatics center and full program expansion to a later date contingent on future funding.
