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9.1sr Superitendent's Report 4-22-2024Tickets SoldAdmission RevenueConcession Revenue 5A/AA Playoff Recap 202320242023202420232024 Section 5AA Semi Final Game 10675$0$699$0$3,024 Section 5AA Semi Final Game 201,066$0$1,086$0$4,018 Section 5A Final1,0031,635$0$1,682$3,565$6,339 Section 5AA Final 2,9152,517$0$2,601$5,394$7,837 Sub Total3,9185,923$0$6,068$8,959$21,218 2023 Total Revenue$8,959 2024 Total Revenue$27,286 Memorandum To: Multipurpose Facility Advisory Commission From: Tim Dalton, Multipurpose Facility Superintendent Date: April 22, 2024 Subject: Superintendent’s Update Section Playoff Games We had a highly successful MSHSL Hockey Section 5A/AA playoffs. In 2023, total concession revenue was $8,959 and served 3,918 fans during two finals. This year, we tripled our year-over-year revenue by hosting two additional games, an added service fee for online ticketing, and improved concession efficiency and capacity. We also received a total of $11,750 for ice rentals and game day operations which were broken down as follows by game. Each game had four hours of ice reserved.  5AA Semi-Final 1: $2,500  5AA Semi-Final 2: $2,500  5A Championship: $3,000  5AA Championship: $3,750 VFW Tourney March 8-10 the FT Center hosted the first VFW State 15U Girls State Hockey Tourney. The VFW has been hosting a Bantam State Tourney for decades, with the 2022 and 2023 events being held here at the FT Center. This year the local VFW club opted to not host the Bantam Tourney but initiated the first VFW State Girls 15U Tourney. The three day tourney featured eight teams and included a banquet in the Fieldhouse for 400+ players, coaches, and families. The VFW were very pleased with the event and plan to consider hosting both Boys and Girls Tourneys at the FT Center in the future. Senior Facility Worker We are very pleased to share that our new full-time Senior Facility Worker, Sam Hansen started March 18, 2024. The last day for the part-time staff that had been doing facility cleaning was March 15, 2024. Sam has been a very positive addition to the staff. We are seeing significant improvements in facility cleanliness, preparation, and maintenance since Sam has been on board. Thumbs Up Partnership On March 19, staff met with Katie Shatusky and Kate Swanson from Thumbs Up, a local foundation that provides a variety of mental health services and resources for the Elk River area community. Thumbs Up is interested in establishing an afterschool/summer program for middle and high school students at the FT Center. We had a good conversation, explored several options for creation of a middle school/high school afterschool program and agreed to continue to pursue avenues to support a program of this type at the FT Center. Additionally, we began to lay the groundwork for a large Thumbs Up fundraising event here at the FT Center. Figure Skating Clinic On March 22-23, the FT Center hosted a figure skating clinic that featured Olympic and world class coaches from around North America. The clinic focused on jumping and spinning skills and was facilitated by the Elk River Figure Skating Club. It was an honor to host this prestigious group of coaches! The FT center drew rave reviews from the coaches who praised the cleanliness and functionality of the facility, along with the hospitality of the staff. Summer Ice As you may recall, we faced a challenge with our summer ice schedule due to multiple users desiring the same limited ice in August 2024. We are happy to report that we have been able to resolve this issue by negotiating a change in schedule with one of the users. Below you will find information outlining this scheduling challenge that was shared previously. In the fall of 2023, it became apparent the demand for summer indoor ice had risen to the level making it financially advantageous to operate both sheets of ice throughout the summer. To this point we have taken the ice out of one of the arenas for the summer months. Budgetary goals were set to sell an additional 200 hours of offseason ice and significant efforts were made by staff to sell those added hours. Happily, ice bookings quickly exceeded the 200 hour mark! Later, some opportunities that aligned with our facility mission came to us, the premier event being the Taste of Elk River, hosted by the Elk River Rotary. To accommodate these dry floor opportunities, we revised the schedule for summer ice in Cornerstone for a few weeks in August. By this point, we had committed one of the two planned ice sheets to a new ice sale opportunity. Most of these scheduling challenges caused by the reduction to one sheet were able to be resolved with relative ease, however, August 5-9, involves some particularly challenging scheduling issues impacting Two Brothers Hockey. We are still working to find a workable solution to accommodate multiple users. We are presenting some creative solutions that would involve collaboration between Two Brothers Hockey and the camp schedule for that week. Community Center Article Included you will find an article published March 11, 2004, by the Star Tribune. The article explores Community Centers in the Twin Cities metro area and some of the unique challenges communities face regarding the operation and management Community Center Facilities. Rental Patron Feedback We have again received some very complimentary feedback from recent facility users. Some of those emails have been included with this report. Social Media Reports Attached are the FT Center Social Media Reports for February 2024 and March 2024. LOCAL 600350049 While some cities are undertaking multimillion-dollar renovations, others worry that they can't fund pools, indoor parks and gathering spaces amid rising costs for other basic city services. By Erin Adler Star Tribune -!2#( ΐΐǾ ΑΏΑΓ 6:00AM AARON LAVINSKY, STAR TRIBUNE Ted Peters, from left, Becky Zech, Doug Steele and Dennis Newton tap their paddles after finishing a game of pickleball on Feb. 23 at the Eagan Community Center. Twin Cities suburbs that boomed in the 1990s built shiny new community centers as a place for residents, ranging from teens and young families to seniors, to congregate and be active. Three decades later, many of those facilities are aging and outdated. Across the metro, city leaders are pondering the same question: At a time when the cost of basic services is rising, are these community spaces, with their massive indoor playgrounds, gymnasiums, pools and event spaces, still worth the investment? For several cities, the answer is clearly yes. Among them: Apple Valley, Chaska, Eagan and Maple Grove, which are all making plans to upgrade their community centers or already doing it, with price tags from $10 million to $116 million. "It's a great symbol of what a community can be to have these spaces where people can be comfortable and gather," said Chuck Stifter, Maple Grove's parks and recreation director. Other communities have made different calculations after crunching the numbers for long-term operational costs. After a 2018 study found that Rosemount would lose $500,000 annually running a community center, officials "pretty quickly abandoned the idea," said City Administrator Logan Martin. Instead, the city is helping Life Time Fitness with some construction costs; the city owns the building and the land the fitness center sits on. Several city officials compared the facilities to parks and libraries public spaces that aren't supposed to turn a profit but enrich residents' lives. City officials must choose whether to fill potholes, tackle affordable housing or invest in civic centers, said Edward Erfurt, director of community action for Strong Towns, a nonprofit dedicated to helping cities become financially resilient. The centers can help communities come together, which is important, and can have benefits like reducing youth crime. "Every investment we make on a municipal level, these are promises that we make in the moment as an elected body," Erfurt said. "The struggle is, long term, the sustainability of these systems." AARON LAVINSKY, STAR TRIBUNE Diane Nieling, right, and Diane Heney walk and talk on their way to the door after finishing playing pickleball on Feb. 23 at the Eagan Community Center. %·¯ ­²¨µ¤Ǿ  ­£ ¤·¯¤­²¨µ¤Ǿ spaces Cities often must cobble together funds from multiple sources to build or upgrade its community center. At least 15 cities across Minnesota are asking this year for state bonding money to construct or refurbish community centers, including Maple Grove, Alexandria, Le Seuer and Duluth. Several city officials said they're responding to demand from their own residents and those of neighboring cities for such spaces. Maple Grove will use sales taxes, state bonding money and a youth athletics partnership to fund its ambitious $116 million remodel. The project will include a third sheet of ice, a senior center expansion, new banquet facilities and renovations to two pools. The city received $6 million in bonding money for design work previously and is now seeking $16.5 million more. "The market is still high for this type of thing," Stifter said. "I think \[community centers are\] as relevant as they've ever been." Plymouth, which undertook a $49 million renovation and expansion of its community center including a walking track, indoor playground, dance and fitness studios and art gallery funded it with money from the state, city-issued tax abatement bonds, a sales tax exemption and a previous levy. It opened in 2022. The city had over a half-million visitors last year and sold about 55,000 indoor playground daily passes. "Our attendance just keeps going up and up," said Kari Hemp, the city's recreation manager. But the costs are ongoing. Plymouth subsidized the facility by about $740,000 in 2023, Hemp said, adding that it's a service and officials know they won't break even. "Very few \[community centers\] make money; often they're subsidized by taxpayers in some way," said Nancy Blankfard, an HGA architect who designed the Plymouth renovation. "In smaller communities ... it's really hard to imagine how they can pay for a large community center." Andrew Pimental, Eagan's parks and recreation director, said some return on investment is important. The city is planning a community center renovation for approximately $10 million and recently conducted a study to determine whether there were additional ways it could bring in money. "It's a balance of really trying to find that middle ground where you're recovering your costs but also making sure you're offering good, quality programs," Pimental said. About 20% of the Eagan center's annual operating cost is covered with revenue from several city- owned antennas. Some cities see little alternative to keeping up their community centers. Fall behind, and they might lose out when people are deciding where to live. Apple Valley is spending $10 million to build an indoor playground and fitness space in between its current community center and senior center, part of a $73 million parks referendum passed last year. "We wanted to make sure the amenities that Apple Valley is able to provide to the public are in line with some of our surrounding communities," said Eric Carlson, the city's parks and recreation director. AARON LAVINSKY, STAR TRIBUNE Carly, 3, visiting with family from Iowa, makes her way through an indoor playground on Feb. 23 at the Eagan Community Center. ͒)­   ¯¤±¥¤¢³ ¶®±«£͒ While large suburbs with strong tax bases can afford to dream big, a new or revamped community center may appear out of reach for other communities. Brooklyn Center leaders hope for a bigger, better community center, as their current structure is over a half-century old. The $37.5 million price tag, though, is an obstacle for a city of 34,000 where residents have one of the lowest average incomes per capita in Minnesota, said Cordell Wiseman, parks and recreation director. The city's plan calls for four gyms, an indoor track and indoor play area and a teen center. Brooklyn Center received $5.1 million from the state and will ask voters to approve a 0.5% sales tax in November to pay for it. "If it passes in November, it's going to be a huge deal for our community," Wiseman said. "Our youth and our young adults pretty much have nowhere to go." Officials said they believe they can come out $100,000 ahead of annual operating costs by hosting events and tournaments at the revamped facility. But City Council Member Dan Jerzak voted against putting the sales tax question on the ballot. "I don't believe we have the bandwidth to financially afford this," he said. Some cities have gotten creative to keep their centers afloat. The Maplewood Community Center was losing $300,000 to $500,000 per year before the city turned over operations to the YMCA in 2016. Now, the city is responsible for exterior building maintenance and the YMCA does everything else, making it a "win-win" for everyone, said Melinda Coleman, Maplewood's former city manager. In West St. Paul, the city was left without a community center when the YMCA closed in 2019. Officials recently discussed results of a survey, conducted with neighboring Mendota Heights, that gauged demand for a community center. A previous proposal estimated a midsize community center would cost $40 million to $60 million. Mayor Dave Napier said figuring out "the threshold of subsidy from the community" may determine whether one is built in West St. Paul. He noted the camaraderie he sees when he brings his grandkids to community centers to play, with birthday parties and neighbors waving hello. "In a perfect world, we would have a community center," he said. Erin Adler is a suburban reporter covering Dakota and Scott counties for the Star Tribune, working breaking news shifts on Sundays. She previously spent three years covering K-12 education in the south metro and five months covering Carver County. erin.adler@startribune.com 612-673-1781 Turf Rental – March 2, 2024 Hello, The Birthday Party was a blast! All the kids had a wonderful time. The facility was clean and ready when we arrived! Thank you for your assistance. Have a great day, Brittany Mooney Minnesota Home Shows Fieldhouse Rental – February 10, 2024 Hello, Thank you for another great Home Show this past weekend. As always, your staff was super attentive and helpful. It was another top-notch experience for Steve and I. You folks are doing a great job!! As for the event, we had another incredible turnout. Our customers were ecstatic, attendees were appreciative - in my experience, it went about as good as it could've gone! Thanks again - if there's anything we can improve on, feel free to let us know! Jim Holt Minnesota Home Shows Room Rental - March 1, 2024 Good Morning, Our rental was smooth as usual! This is the second time we have used your facilities for business meetings/training. Each time has been smooth, clean, and fitting for our needs. We really appreciate the smooth and easy transaction of booking along with the mix of personal communication before and after each use. We plan to continue to use your facilities for our meetings/ training moving forward. This was our first time utilizing your AV/ TV setup with our booking. It was easy to hook up to and worked seamlessly. Having amenities like this available with the space is a large incentive for us to continue to use your facilities. No feedback other than another positive experience that will prompt us to continue to book with you. Enjoy the rest of your day! Alexis Jarveis Karate Event - February 18, 2024 Morning! We loved the space! It was absolutely perfect for us! I will try to send over some pictures soon. In a couple of months I will start planning our 2025 event and contact you for availability! Thank you for all of your help! Wayne Cornelius