 - A new multi-sport recreation facility in Riverton would require a subsidy of at least $500,000 per year to operate, the Riverton City Council heard last week.){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – A new multi-sport recreation facility in Riverton would require a subsidy of at least $500,000 per year to operate, the Riverton City Council heard last week.
The estimate came from a feasibility study that Ballard King & Associates and JLG Architects conducted on the city’s behalf this year.
The study concluded that a multi-sport recreational facility – including multipurpose courts, a walking track, meeting rooms, and extra space for other amenities – would cost more than $14 million to build.
Separately, the study estimated that an ice rink would cost an additional $12.8 million to build and would increase the annual subsidy amount required to operate the multi-sport facility to about $963,000 per year.
The city could charge admission fees and rental fees to help reduce the projected subsidy, but even without the ice rink, those revenue streams “are not going to be sufficient to cover the operating costs,” Ballard King Senior Associate Jenise Jensen said, suggesting that the city “think about the additional funding sources that would be necessary” to run the facility.
For example, she said, “A lot of communities very successfully use some sort of tax initiative.”
Jensen acknowledged that Fremont County voters recently defeated a tax initiative supporting economic development, but she said that option “could be revisited … if you worked with the community and there was (more) study on that.”
“We don’t think (that option) should be discounted,” she said.
The city could also explore the possibility of working with Fremont County School District 25, Central Wyoming College, or a local business “to see if there’s some shared partnerships that could work for both entities” to support the project, Jensen said – “and then obviously the last area would be looking at grants, fundraising campaigns, and/or philanthropic sorts of donations that might be able to help.”
Mayor Tim Hancock wondered whether the City of Lander might be interested in partnering with Riverton to provide the multipurpose court space in one community and the ice rink in the other.
“That would be a great idea if the two communities could partner,” Jensen said. “Because it’s not going to be cheap for either community to operate a facility. And if you have more people that are willing to come and support, then that’s going to make it more attainable for everyone.”
The study indicated that the activity center and ice rink combined would have a total economic impact of more than $1 million annually.
Community feedback
Jensen said the feasibility study used a market analysis, community surveys, and local focus groups to help determine which amenities should be included in the multi-sport facility.
The community response to the request for feedback was “overwhelming,” she noted, pointing specifically to the community surveys, which garnered 1,140 responses – more than 10 percent of the local population.
“The survey results, to me, were amazing,” she said. “We typically … only see about a 3 percent response rate. (So) I couldn’t believe it. That’s just an incredible response rate for your city, and I think it also speaks to how much they wanted to be heard and how interested in this project they were.”
When the survey respondents were asked to rank the amenities that would be important to include in a new facility, the top three choices were a multi-purpose gymnasium (92.4 percent), an indoor walking/jogging track (91.9 percent), and space for teens (86 percent), according to the study.
When the respondents had to select only their top three most important amenities, however, the study shows that the ice skating rink rose to the No. 3 spot, while the multi-purpose gymnasium remained at No. 1 and the indoor walking/jogging track remained at No. 2.
During focus group meetings, Jensen said people talked about “a lack of available indoor space” for court-based activities in Riverton.
The focus group participants also said “there was a really high need for indoor spaces for youth and seniors,” she said – especially in the winter months, when “there’s really no place that’s safe for (seniors) to stay active and healthy.”
When the focus groups were asked to come to an agreement about the amenities that should be prioritized, Jensen said “they came to a consensus that the need was to have flexible spaces that could support multiple activities, versus an area that could only support one activity – for instance, like an ice rink.”
“It’s not that they don’t want these other things – they certainly do,” she said. “It’s about what would serve the biggest section of the community.”
‘Phased approach’
A “phased approach” to the project could help the city accommodate both the multipurpose courts and an ice rink over time, JLG Architects Recreation and Sports Specialist Adam Barnett said.
For example, he suggested, “you could build the activity center piece” first, then “you could come back in two years (or) five years and you could build the ice piece and attach it on.”
The strategy is “very common,” he said, noting that “so many communities we work with are all fighting uphill and trying to get their projects funded and get off the ground.”
“A lot of times it’s more feasible for communities, as funding can come in over a longer period of time, to kind of phase these and make it happen that way over kind of a longer duration,” he said.
The floor plan for the indoor activity center that Barnett presented last week featured a 48,000 square foot field house with a walking/jogging track and court space that can accommodate several different kinds of activities.
“What we tried to do is really make this kind of the Swiss army knife of recreation, meaning that it’s truly as multipurpose as possible,” he said. “We’ve got three basketball courts running left to right, (but) we could do six volleyball courts across those basketball courts – so that would support some smaller tournaments … that could be hosted here.”
The courts could also be striped for pickleball, tennis, and other sports, he added.
On the main floor and the upper mezzanine of the activity center, the plan shows multi-purpose meeting rooms where community members could host birthday parties, senior programs, and other activities, Barnett said, while the other side of the mezzanine features a “large, open area” where “you could have batting cages (or) golf cages” or even a “small jungle gym” where younger children could play while their older siblings play sports.
The design he presented for the 33,000 square foot ice rink included space for the ice sheet and associated equipment, four team rooms, up to 300 seats for spectators, a referee room, a small concession area, and bathrooms, all in “a very simple, straightforward building.”
“This is really kind of our basic community rink,” he said.
In the off-season, Jensen said the ice rink could be converted into an indoor playground with inflatables and other activities for children.
The rink space could also accommodate pickleball and “some limited sports camps,” she said, but because it is set on a concrete slab, it shouldn’t be used for more high-impact sports
“(For those) sports … you need some sort of cushioning and ability to absorb shock loads,” Barnett explained. “(Otherwise) you’re going to see a lot of injuries in a short amount of time, because that surface is just too hard for those … impact sports.”
Some communities place portable turf on top of the cement, making it possible to use the area for alternative programs in the summer months, but Barnett said rink space doesn’t usually “double up well with court space.”
“You could buy portable … wood basketball courts or volleyball courts, but there’s just a lot of costs associated with that, and then moving it and setting it up and teardown,” he said. “It’s really not feasible. I’ve never really seen that in a community.”
After the consultants finished their presentation, Hancock thanked them for gathering the information, which he said “has brought us closer than I think Riverton has ever been to actually being able to have something like this materialize.”
“Giving us some actual numbers to work with and some ideas and different ways it can operate is incredible, so I feel very heartened,” he said. “Nevertheless, that’s a lot (of) money … to just build it, let alone operate it. But it gives us a lot of hope in terms of where we can go in the future.”
For more information, call the City of Riverton at (307) 856-2227.