Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2.a. Hope Fieldhouse Formal Request EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City Council Special Work Session: July 19, 2018 AGENDA ITEM: Discuss formal partnership request by Hope Fieldhouse AGENDA SECTION: Discussion PREPARED BY: Logan Martin, City Administrator Dan Schultz, Parks & Recreation Director AGENDA NO.: 2.a. ATTACHMENTS: Hope Fieldhouse Formal Request APPROVED BY: LJM RECOMMENDED ACTION: Discuss the formal partnership request by Hope Fieldhouse and provide direction on next steps. BACKGROUND The development team at Hope Fieldhouse has submitted a formal request asking the City to partner financially toward the completion of this recreation project. The City Council has met a number of times over the last few months (and previously under different iterations of the project) to discuss this project. Most recently, the Council met in a work session on June 5 and discussed the current proposal. At that time, the Council raised concerns regarding the proposal, specifically surrounding the large amount of funds requested, and the policy implications of providing funding to a non-governmental agency, among others. The most recent request from Hope Fieldhouse is attached. The financial request has been modified from previous iterations, so please pay special attention to that section. Representatives from the project will be present at the meeting to discuss the proposal. RECOMMENDATION Staff requests the City Council discuss the partnership proposal from Hope Fieldhouse and provide direction on next steps. TO: Logan Martin FROM: Hope Fieldhouse RE: Request for Financial Assistance DATE: 07/17/2018 Hope Fieldhouse (HF) is a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation that seeks to bring a quality indoor athletic facility to the Rosemount community that will provide a home for our youth and adaptive sports programs. At Hope Fieldhouse, our mission is to improve and inspire this community in three ways…through Competition, Action, and Inclusion. These are the defining pillars of our foundation, and they are the benchmarks by which we will measure the ultimate success of this vision. As you know, Hope Fieldhouse plans consist of a 42,000-sq. ft. facility in the heart of Rosemount on the corner of Biscayne avenue and 145th street. This facility will have four full-sized courts that will offer youth, adaptive, high school and college teams a facility to practice and host games. These courts can also be divided up into eight mini courts for the younger grades, as well as six volleyball courts. In addition to basketball and volleyball, the facility will be able to host all hardwood court activities like wrestling meets, dance/cheer competitions, gymnastic meets, pickleball, futsal, and floor hockey. The gymnasium space will be located on the main floor of the building making it easily accessible for our adaptive athletes and their family members. Benefits of this facility to our community: ● RAAA will use this facility as their home for hardwood sports and will address their requests for additional gym space. ● We anticipate that over 100,000 people will visit this facility per year, including hosting at least 20+ tournaments/events annually. This would be an obvious and significant benefit to Rosemount-based businesses. ● Three tenant spaces within Hope Fieldhouse will also bring three additional new businesses to Rosemount, and thus bring additional jobs with them. ● Existing tournaments that are currently mostly held outside of Rosemount will be able to be hosted now at HF, RCC, RMS and RHS. Why are we requesting city of Rosemount’s help? Since 2013, the citizens of Rosemount, City Council and RAAA families have been looking for solutions for youth activity space needs. We believe that all parties including City Council have worked tirelessly to address these needs and have been forced to think more creatively about how to solve these needs. The Flint Hills sports complex, as an example, was accomplished by a land donation, in- kind gifts from subcontractors and a capital investment by the city. This project should address many of the outdoor needs for soccer as the complex continues to grow. The Ames soccer complex was built as a joint venture with DCTC providing the land and the city of Rosemount providing a $500,000 capital investment and ongoing maintenance. The Umore baseball fields complex is a city funded and maintained project, and once fully completed should provide a quality practice & tournament site for the local youth baseball & softball associations, while also providing a strong benefit to the DCTC softball/baseball programs. Hockey is currently being addressed with a very unconventional idea as a joint venture between city of Inver Grove Heights, RAHA and the city of Rosemount. As currently constructed, this “renovation-for-ice-time” agreement would benefit RAHA and Inver Grove Heights far more than the city of Rosemount, but it’s a deal that helps take substantial pressure from Rosemount hockey families and teams. Hope Fieldhouse would like to be next in a long line of out-of-the-box solutions to meet the city’s facility needs. Hope Fieldhouse will be funded initially with donations from local businesses, generous community members, and long-term debt. Operations will be funded mostly by renting court space, income from commercial tenants, and by offering memberships. Hope Fieldhouse has already received letters of intent for court space from RAAA, Dakota Hawks and Dakota Rev. Building this facility will effectively solve the immediate need for indoor court space within our community for several years, keep tournament visitors and residents in our community during events while also generating 30-40 jobs. We fully understand one of the primary objections to this project from the city’s perspective is that this project will perceivably not directly bring revenue to the city of Rosemount...but neither do many of the other projects cited. Each project listed above is a solution to a problem that faced Rosemount community members. RAAA has 3,000 families and a full 1/3 + of those play indoor sports.…… Additionally, we would like to briefly address a couple other potential objections/misconceptions about the Hope Fieldhouse project that have been communicated to us. Misconception #1 -- “Hope Fieldhouse is attempting to be (or replace) a potential future community center or YMCA-type facility”. Hope Fieldhouse is not attempting to try to emulate or substitute for a future potential larger broad-reaching city indoor recreation project because we will not offer aquatics, child-care, fixed classrooms/party rooms, ice, or numerous other needed programs/amenities needed in the future. Nor does Hope Fieldhouse seek to commit the city to a substantial multi-million-dollar JPA or formal ongoing corporate partnership agreement, bonding referendum, and stakeholders search...all of which would typically be required from a YMCA or similar. We only look to offer quality, ample, and immediate indoor recreational court space to our community members, adaptive and high school students at a fair market rate, which is something YMCA’s do not do. Our core mission is to “Love and serve our community through athletics and fitness opportunities”, nothing more and nothing less. Misconception #2 -- “Hope Fieldhouse is a religious organization or is directly affiliated with the church”. Hope Fieldhouse is plain-and-simply not a religious or faith-based organization and has no corporate affiliation with Community of Hope Church. The relationship is purely leasor/leasee. This basic fact has been widely established both in statement and in public record, and any opposing opinion of this can be quickly and easily debunked for any party or constituent that would potentially try to believe otherwise. Our formal request: We are not asking the city to be the primary funding source of this project...we are simply asking if you would be willing to substantially and strategically contribute to our capital campaign as a timely opportunity to remedy the indoor court issue in Rosemount for the next several years to come. We are requesting participation by the City of Rosemount in our Capital Campaign in the following ways: 1. Waving of the following fees related to development and construction a. Master Development Plan Fee ($2,500) b. WAC and SAC Fees ($20,000 est.) c. Supplemental Water and Sewer Connection charges d. Survey escrow fee ($2,000) e. Plan check fees ($35,000 est.) f. Any additional fees not listed above that the city can waive or or defer. Plus one of the 2 following options: 2. Funding of the elevated walking/running track (defined as all materials and labor costs directly attributable to the track). This would be done with the agreement that all Rosemount residents or “patrons” as defined over the age of 65 years old will be provided free life-time year-round access to the track only (or, if already a club member, an adjusted discount in the amount of an a-la-carte track-only membership from their full membership dues). Current estimated cost of track is appx $300,000, but contribution will be based on actual final itemized costs. This payout will be paid made annually over the course of 10 years. -OR- 3. City of Rosemount will guarantee 1200 hours of court rental time on an annual basis for 10 years at $35 per hour. This court time can be used at the city of Rosemount’s discretion or responsibility of the allocation can be transferred to another group or association. In exchange for your assistance, Hope Fieldhouse would commit the following to the Rosemount community: 1. Priority will be given to RAAA for the first 5,000 hours of available court space. a. Based on past and continued growth projections, 5,000 hours annually would satisfy RAAA’s need for indoor court space for the foreseeable future. 2. Hope Fieldhouse will offer much-needed Senior programming, including a 240M quality track for Walking Clubs, indoor Pickleball programming, and potential various other Community Ed programs that do not currently have a suitable venue to exist. There will also be unlimited free “walking track-only” access to patrons over 65, and free access with some time restrictions to patrons over 60. 3. Hope Fieldhouse will provide a stable, safer, and properly adapted home for Dakota United Hawks practices and games. We also believe this venue will quickly evolve into a new high demand site for additional adapted clubs and tournaments, including wheelchair basketball. a. This will effectively open the high-demand afternoon gym-time at RCC currently used by the Dakota Hawks during the late fall/winter/early spring months that can be instead rented out to the RHS varsity court sports. (per Parks & Rec and HS coaches) 4. Use of facility for Rosemount residents and workers a. Discounted “patron” memberships will be offered to all city of Rosemount (or RAAA boundary) residents, as well as to people working within Rosemont proper. Further discounts will also be offered to Vets, Emergency service workers, Seniors, city/county/district employees, and misc. HF sponsored programming. 5. Hope Fieldhouse would make the venue available for Leprechaun Days event(s). 6. Hope Fieldhouse would make the venue available for the Rosemount Home & Business Expo as vendor demand has already outgrown RCC. 7. Hope Fieldhouse will prominently promote Rosemount based businesses during tournaments and events and work with the best of intentions to drive revenue to local Rosemount businesses, both directly and indirectly. 8. Permanent and prominent recognition of the Rosemount City Council on our ‘Founding Donor” Wall, as well as the option of the City of Rosemount to claim the naming rights to an available building amenity of choice. In conclusion, we would like to state something obvious, but for all of us who love and care about the growth of this City, something wonderful…. Rosemount housing is BOOMING! Families are pouring into our community at an incredible and steadily increasing rate. While this is undeniable and certainly positive, it also comes with an awesome responsibility for city leadership to proactively respond to such growth in a timely manner. With the massive influx of families, indoor recreational facility needs have truly reached a critical mass right now. Unfortunately, the rate of growth combined with an indoor facility shortage that was already a decade or more behind means that this community just does not have the time to wait for 3-4 (or more) years for completion of a bonded recreational facility that may or may not even solve the courts shortage. In other words, we do not view the current option as HF now -OR- some kind of new community center later…..we simply will need BOTH. Consider this….for a new community center/YMCA-type project, aquatics alone will constitute appx 1/4th of the entire construction budget and likely nearly 1/3rd of the ongoing maintenance budget. Without the need later to build 4+ courts (which would be required at a minimum), those funds could be better allocated towards improved aquatics and various other needed public amenities. As previously stated, the community recognizes this period as a benchmark moment for growth and leadership in Rosemount’s long history. We hope that the legacy of this current city leadership will as be the visionary Council that finally “turned the tide” on community enrichment! Sincerely, Dan Corley President & Executive Director Hope Fieldhouse