Rose Bowl Aquatics Center Seeks to Adjust Loan Terms

Directors of the Amateur Athletic Foundation Rose Bowl Aquatics Center are seeking to restructure a $4-million city loan after paying $340,000 on a $700,000 payment due Dec. 31.

The center paid only about half the loan payment because the center had paid more than $350,000 in improvements to Brookside Park before the pools opened in June, said Nicholas Conway, an aquatics center board member.

“How can we pay for the construction change orders and then turn around and pay the debt, too?” Conway asked.

The aquatics center also wants to extend the five-year payment structure on the city loan to as much as 10 years, Conway said.

Robert Baderian, Recreation Department acting director, said city officials plan to meet with the aquatics center board to discuss the park improvements and loan restructuring. Any change would have to be approved by the Board of Directors, he said.

The aquatics center is a nonprofit organization that built a $6.5-million complex with an Olympic swimming pool and a diving pool on the site of the old city-owned Brookside Plunge. The city paid $997,000 for the complex in addition to the $4-million loan; the aquatics center financed the rest.

The center has been criticized by the Pasadena National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which alleged that minorities have been excluded from the center because of the high cost of family memberships and swimming lessons there.

The NAACP said that not enough hours are provided for recreational swimming, which costs 50 cents for children and $1.50 for adults.

But board members say many minorities used the pool last summer, and that scholarship programs will provide amateur athletics training at the pool for minorities.