PONDERAY — The mayor and City Council agreed to slow roll any potential agreement with the Ponderay Aquatic Center Endowment after discussion on Monday evening. 

The city and PACE have been in discussions concerning an Idaho Gem grant application, which the non-profit was seeking to submit alongside the municipality. After that application was tabled in March, PACE representatives, Secretary Joan Bloom and President Michael DiBenedetto, came before the council to ask for a legally binding agreement of cooperation between the two parties.  

“You have the soccer fields out there; you started a great thing. We would just like to add to that,” Bloom said of the Field of Dreams. “But we would like to add to it without feeling like we're beating our head on the wall. I mean, I'm stuck right now. I'm not doing any other grants or anything else that might require cooperation of a municipality, because I need to know if you're going to work with us." 

In the agenda packet, Bloom laid out a few options that would see the city commit land at the Field of Dreams to becoming the new PACE facility. Bloom said PACE is not asking the city for money and added that she feels submitting the grant would get the organization’s name out there more and help draw in more donors. 

Mayor Steve Geiger seemed cautious of an agreement, but said he wanted to see PACE’s vision to come to life. Geiger said there would likely need to be a memorandum of agreement between the two parties, which the city has had issues in the past, and wouldn’t get done in Monday’s meeting.  

Geiger expressed concern about losing momentum the city has built with their new developments like the Field of Dreams and The Pond, the city’s ice rink. He also said that the land currently lacks sewer and running water, creating further issues with committing to PACE’s vision. 

“We got momentum with our local option tax passing, we've got folks that want ice, we got folks here that want baseball,” Geiger said. “Now we got this 100-million-dollar facility how [do we] tie it all together [and] put it on a piece of land where there's significant infrastructure costs that you will have no sewer, winning water. We've got a lot of challenges ahead of us that we're trying to work out.” 

Planning Director for Ponderay, KayLeigh Miller said the lack of utilities is one of her biggest concerns because the city has no control over the sewer or water district. Miller said that the council has made it a priority to get an ice rink at the Field of Dreams and that she didn’t know how that plan would work with PACE’s vision. 

One of the options listed in the agenda packet was a 99-year lease to PACE from the city, which Councilor Brenda Thompson said she was concerned about. DiBenedetto said the 99-year lease is an element that could come later, once more fundraising is complete, and that PACE is looking for a short-term agreement to provide more stability. 

Miller said that the city did approve a resolution in 2025 that stated that the city and PACE recognized that the Field of Dreams would be the ideal location for an aquatic recreation facility. 

“I can't imagine what changes you guys have put in place in the past few years,” DiBenedetto said. “But I think a time limited deal with endpoints that make sense would provide us the opportunity to give you a limited requirement of, if you can come up with this and can build this, this and this. Then this is it, you're there.” 

PACE announced its plans for the recreation center in June 2025, which would feature a community and competitive pool and an NHL-sized indoor ice rink. DiBenedetto said that the next step, if the organization receives the partnership and Gem grant, would be to get a model of the footprint and use a 3D printer to give residents a better idea of what they want to build. 

At the end of the discussion, Geiger said that the city would remain in contact and see if the two parties could work on a five-year plan and go over the site before an agreement is brought back before the council.