High local interest in aquatics center but no recommendation to prioritize project

Dare County Family Recreation Park in Kill Devil Hills as it appears at sunset on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. A county-hired firm found that community members ranked a pool as the most desired recreation amenity, but recommended that it not be prioritized immediately due to its land and financial demands. (Photo by Corinne Saunders)

By Lizzie Stoner, intern

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Dare County won’t be diving into an aquatics center project anytime soon if it follows recommendations presented at the Sept. 3 Dare County Board of Commissioners’ meeting. But some county residents have taken the matter into their own hands and have been crowdfunding and property searching since 2015. 

Despite being the community’s top desired amenity, a local aquatics center project has not been prioritized due to a lack of land and money, McGill Associates told commissioners.

“There is great demand for an aquatics center, but it’s recommended you wait to develop it,” the firm’s presentation said.

“I don’t know if Dare County is going to be able to provide everything for it. We don’t have the land for it currently,” Dare County Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Gregory told Outer Banks Insider.

This year, Dare County contracted with McGill Associates to do a Phase 1 Needs Assessment and a Phase 2 Recommendation and Implementation Plan. The firm presented its recommendation plan to commissioners on Sept. 3.

McGill Associates found that demand for recreation has grown, not because of a significant population increase, but because of an increase in current residents’ participation in recreation. 

“We’re living longer, we’re playing longer; that recreational demand has increased,” said Jim Ford, land planner at McGill Associates. 

To gather community input, the firm held public meetings throughout Dare County that brought in approximately 292 participants and surveyed 2,044 households representing 3,890 individuals.  

A pool was the most-sought amenity countywide, across the Northern Beach, Roanoke Island/Mainland and Hatteras Island divisions of the Dare County Parks and Recreation Department. (Chart from the McGill Associates’ Dare County Recreation Needs Assessment)

Community members across all three geographic Dare County Parks and Recreation Department divisions ranked a pool as the most desired amenity. Despite high community interest, the county lacks the inventory to meet the demand for an aquatics center, the firm found.

“We have a lot of people asking for these things, but do we have enough to provide service to meet that demand?” Ford said. 

The recommendation plan identified synthetic turf, indoor expansions/facility updates, splash pads and accessibility improvements as the most immediate needs. These recommendations are based on community demand and inventory—available land and money—in Dare County.

Immediate needs for parks and recreation in Dare County as identified by McGill Associates in their recommendation plan presented at the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ meeting on Sept. 3, 2025. (Chart from McGill Associates’ presentation)

Similarly, a previous countywide parks and recreation needs and recommendations assessment also did not include a pool.

Oakley Collier Architects, which Dare County hired in 2022, found the top priorities were to build pickleball courts and new athletic fields throughout the county, and to update and build upon existing facilities, including the Nags Head Soccer Complex, the Youth Center at Family Recreation Park in Kill Devil Hills, the Lions Club Center at Westcott Park in Manteo, the Fessenden Center in Buxton and the Thomas A. Baum Senior Center in Kill Devil Hills. The projected total cost was $36,054,963.

McGill Associates in its presentation this month recommended making an aquatics center a long-term goal, rather than pouring all the county’s resources into it now. 

“While there is high demand for [an aquatics center], I think this is something that should be looked at as more of a future goal, more than an immediate or mid-term goal,” Ford said. 

Gregory told Outer Banks Insider he agrees with that plan.

“It’s kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket for an aquatic center and there’s no room for anything else,” Gregory said.

According to the firm, splash pads will satisfy the demand for aquatics while remaining in budget. 

“Splash pads are more affordable,” Ford said. “They do offer recreation that is aquatic. It could meet a lot of that need in the future, in the short term anyway.”

Anita Bills, a Frisco resident and Parks and Recreation Advisory Council member, disagrees with that assessment. 

“The splash pads would be fun for the kids, but that’s it; it’s fun for the kids,” Bills said. “It’s not getting in the water. It’s not giving the adults and even our children rehab.”

Bills has spent over 50 years managing and working at pools, teaching swim lessons and providing water safety instruction for lifeguards. 

She is determined to get an aquatics center built on Hatteras Island. 

Bills and five other community members formed a nonprofit and are spearheading efforts to get the pool built. Through community donations, fundraising and grants, they seek to raise about $20 million for an aquatics center. 

“Look, you got to start thinking outside the box, you’ve got to,” Bills said. “This is going to cost some big bucks, so we have to think outside the box.”

Her “outside of the box” ideas include getting donations from large companies that want to improve their public image, building a website to increase crowdfunding efforts and building brick pathways that honor those who donate to the pool.

The biggest roadblock, even above money, is the land. Land big enough to house an aquatics center is not only expensive but hard to come by, Bills said. While the team continues to write grants, most cannot be applied for until the property for the pool is purchased. 

They are currently looking at an $800,000 property in Buxton across from Cape Hatteras Secondary School. 

Despite the uncertain nature of the aquatics center project, Bills has a lot of ideas for the construction and management of the pool. 

She envisions a stainless steel, above-ground pool, which she said is more cost-effective than in-ground pools.

She plans for membership to be offered on a yearly, six-month, and three-month basis, with senior discounts and visitor punch cards that allow tourists to use the pool 10 times. 

She intends for the pool to be used for more than just family swimming. Bills wants the pool to be used for swim lessons, surrounding high school swim team practices, rescue training, Special Olympics and rehabilitation. The committee has also thrown around the idea of a scholarship that pays for children to take three weeks of swimming lessons, she said. 

Building an aquatics center is a big task to take on without help from the local government, but Bills believes that the time, money and effort is worth it. 

On an island, she said, people should know how to swim. The ocean is unpredictable and the sound sometimes has high bacterial levels and marine creatures, but clean and clear pools make learning how to swim less daunting, Bills said. 

“As far as teaching the kids, I’d much rather teach in a pool than in the sound,” Bills said. 

While she might open to working with the county on the pool project, she envisions community led efforts.

“We will be able to provide any help that Parks and Rec requires, but the community will be running the pool and have a committee to take care of issues that arise,” she said.

Dare County commissioners will consider McGill Associates’ recommendations and vote to adopt a recreation action plan in the future. Currently, there is no indication that the county will start work on an aquatics center anytime soon. 

“I think if you do an aquatic center, it’s going to have to be some kind of partnership between private partners,” Gregory said. “Or with the county, private [partners] and maybe the towns and the hospital. It’s going to have to be a group effort.”

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