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GREENSBORO — By next week, the city should have a better idea of whether it will build a competitive regional aquatics center or simply an indoor community pool.

While a community pool might satisfy the needs of local swim teams and the public, an aquatics center could lure more visitors who would spend millions at area hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

Which facility the City Council chooses to build at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex will be determined soon.

The chief issue involves the center’s cost. City voters agreed last year to spend $12 million on the facility.

But when city officials designed the aquatics center and priced construction, it came in over budget by more than $6 million.

Earlier this month, the former City Council chose to go the more expensive route and use proceeds from the hotel sales tax to make up the gap.

But the new City Council, which includes four new members, wants to review the whole issue and plans to discuss it at the regular Tuesday meeting, if not during a two-day retreat that begins today.

The council has the following options:

* Agree with the previous council and use hotel sales tax revenue to close the construction funding gap.

* Find a corporate sponsor for the facility.

* Put another request to the voters next year to see if they will approve paying for the difference.

* Pare back some part of the aquatics center to bring it under the original $12 million budget.

A number of residents have said the city is overreaching to build a major aquatic center and is going against what voters originally supported.

Some council members, including Trudy Wade and Danny Thompson, expressed support earlier this week for a new referendum to see if voters want to spend more money on the facility.

“It seems to me it restores (the people’s) trust in us,” Wade said earlier this week. “It makes it fair.”

Other council members, however, have said that notion is little more than a thinly disguised attempt to gut the project.

“If I were trying to kill a project,” Councilman Robbie Perkins said, “it would be one of the ways I would do it. It’s pretty slick.”

Henri Fourrier, head of the Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, has said at least a couple of options in front of the council aren’t viable. A corporate sponsor isn’t available now.

And cutting the pool’s diving well, Fourrier said, would be unwise.

“It’s like having a track, but no field,” he said.

The diving well, Fourrier said, with a 50-meter pool, can lure regional, state and national meets similar to those at other pools in North Carolina.

Similar facilities in Charlotte, Cary and Huntersville regularly host such events throughout the year.

Local boosters already are reaching out to regional swimming organizations and teams about meets here and asking collegiate athletics programs to hold meets at the center.

“It would definitely be something we’d consider,” said Kris Pierce, assistant director of championships for the ACC.

The NCAA wouldn’t make an official call on whether Greensboro would get a collegiate meet but said it could be a location for future meets.

The events that make the biggest impact on hotels and restaurants come through youth swim and diving associations, which could bring dozens of teams, hundreds of athletes and families. The groups most often compete in youth and masters competitions for swimming, diving, water polo and synchronized swimming.

Trish Martin, president of the Greensboro Swimming Association, said the club would move all its swimming events to the aquatics center.

“The beauty of this is that they could have a championship meet with swimming and diving,” Martin said, “and we’ve already had a lot of interest expressed in the facility.”

High-profile national meets could come here as well.

“Nationals generally have upwards of 1,000 swimmers and a larger group that would accompany them,” said Karen Linhart, spokeswoman for USA Swimming.

Officials at aquatic centers across the state and within sanctioning bodies agree that another venue for competitive swimming in the state would be used.

Pools in Charlotte and Cary carry full schedules and bring millions to each community through hotel tax and other tourism money. Both also have annual operating deficits that aren’t covered totally by ticket sales and memberships.

Mecklenburg’s pool in downtown Charlotte, which booked 46 swim meets this year, receives about $500,000 from local government for operating expenses.

The nonprofit Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary seeks donations and volunteers to keep open.

Mike Curran, president of the Triangle Aquatic Center, said his facility generates a $5.3 million economic impact for the Triangle each year from its 35 events.

There appear to be enough high-profile events to go around.

* The aquatic center in Cary will host high school regional and state swimming championships in February.

* Mecklenburg had Michael Phelps and other top-ranked U.S. swimmers come to Charlotte UltraSwim as part of the USA Swimming Grand Prix, which sold out three days’ worth of events.

* The aquatic center in Huntersville held the 2005 national diving championships and hosted the 2009 Pan Am junior championships for synchronized swimming.

All three centers host numerous local and regional events.

A competition pool in Greensboro, with high dives, would be a selling point.

“There is a demand both from AAU swimming and diving and USA swimming and diving both for facilities that can host swimming and diving events,” said John Wolsh, head coach of the Montgomery Dive Club in suburban Maryland.

Wolsh is a former vice president of USA Diving in charge of its Junior Olympics programs. He’s also coached a world champion and 11 U.S. national diving teams.

But, Wolsh said, day-to-day programs are just as important to provide not just for big meets but for community use, too.

“While Jimmy is doing the swim team class, mommy can go and do a spin class or pilates class,” he said.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com