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Poll: Thoughts On The Not Yet Open O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex

September 23, 2012 Featured, North City, Parks, Politics/Policy 13 Comments

The $21-$22 million dollar O’Fallon Recreation Complex has been finished for a couple of months now but the facility remains closed.  This facility is the north side equal to the facility that opened in Carondelet Park on November 19, 2009:

The City of St. Louis wanted a new community recreation center on the City’s North Side to serve as a youth and elderly outreach facility, encouraging all ages to be engaged in the community. St. Louis City officials determined that there was significant interest in the North St. Louis area to support this new facility. The project is being funded by a one-eighth-cent sales tax approved by city voters in 2008.

The O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex is designed to achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Silver certification for environmental design and sustainability. “This new project shows the City’s commitment to improving the quality of life in North St. Louis,” says St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay. “This building will be an amenity for nearby neighborhoods and will provide a fun, safe place for children, adults and seniors to go after school and on weekends. It will help make the community healthier, and will help make our northside neighborhoods better places to live and work. The positive impact of this investment will be enjoyed by the community for years to come.” (St. Louis)

But the operating agreement between the city and the YMCA have yet to be approved.

Alderman Antonio French says Mayor Francis Slay has cut a bad deal for his residents. French says the contractor hired to run the facility — the YMCA — wants to charge his residents and the city government too much money, yet can’t assure him needy children will get in for next-to-free. (stltoday.com) 

And the other side:

Jeff Rainford, Slay’s chief of staff, calls the rec center project the mayor’s “baby” and says he’s not sure why French, who was previously happy with the YMCA’s fee schedule and management proposal, is suddenly holding up the bill. The YMCA says they’ll be able to open the center 90 days after the bill is approved.

“Halfway through, he pulled the bill and started criticizing the mayor,” says Rainford. “We want people to be able to use it. It’d be a crying shame to build this palace on the hill and no one can use it.”

Rainsford [sic] says there will be 1,300 guaranteed scholarships given to kids and their families, 650 will be distributed by the Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis, which is supposed to partner with the Y to provide children’s activities. In order to obtain the lower $25 membership, parents will have to show cause for need and bring in a pay stub or W-2 form. (Riverfront Times)

One issue French told me is YMCA formula for calculating a lower fee, the YMCA says their formula is proprietary information. French says that’s fine for other facilities but not one built with tax money and receiving $1.2 million per year operating subsidy.

ABOVE: Empty bike racks in front of the unopened O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex

Right now both sides have dug in their heels:

The YMCA is lined up to operate the rec center. But city aldermen are raising concerns over a $1.2 million subsidy it would need. That’s $500,000 more per year than an estimate done eight years ago.

It’s not clear exactly where the money will come from.

Slay’s office says under a current plan, 1,300 young people would get a $25 dollar- a-year membership for the center.

Alderman Antonio French says he wants commitments in writing. (KMOV)

No shortage of options:

There’s been a lot of back-and-forthing about who would pay what to use the facility and what discounts might be offered to low-income families. Mr. French told us he’d be satisfied if low-income families paid 60 percent of the planned family rate of $55 a month, or $33 a month. If 5,000 low-income families took advantage of a $22-a-month discount, $110,000 a year would be needed.

Here’s a plan: If all the civic groups and corporations who have bemoaned the lack of recreational opportunities in north St. Louis bucked up, 110 grand would be easy.

Mayor Francis Slay’s office thinks Mr. French is playing politics. He is a paid consultant to Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, who might challenge Mr. Slay for his job next year. Opening a new rec center on the north side before the March primary election might benefit the Slay campaign. (stltoday.com editorial)

So what do you think? Take the poll in the right sidebar (mobile users need to switch to full website). Poll results on Wednesday October 3rd along with my thoughts on the controversy and a look at pedestrian access to the facility.

– Steve Patterson

  • A City Resident

    I don’t understand why Southside residents would complain about the affordability of the Carondelet facility. Doesn’t your Alderperson look out for you? Don’t blame Alderman French for working on behalf of his constituents … Instead, you should be questioning why your Alderperson does not.

    • guest

      ^ This is a warped view. “Alderpersons” are in no position whatsoever to come up with the millions of dollars it costs to run a community center in their wards. The same could be said for the Mayor. How is the Mayor supposed to raise this money? The answer is to take money away from other basic city services. These are regional facilities, serving residents of more than one ward. The Carondelet Rec Center is filled with people from South County.

  • guest

    The last quote comes from a Post Dispatch editorial. They need a fact checker for their own work because their math is off by more than a million dollars. The challenge isn’t to raise $110,000 for scholarships/subsidies; it’s to raise well over a million. It’s an unfortunate situation. Building community centers is a lot easier than finding the money to operate them.

  • guest

    Oh, and that one million dollar Post Dispatch error is *per year*. Operating costs eat you alive.

  • JZ71

    If you build a Cadillac facility, expect to pay premium prices to both use and maintain it. Being poor sucks, but poverty doesn’t give anyone any special “rights” to use something they can’t afford. The two real problems here are why the city “needs” to subcontract with the Y to run the two centers (or to subsidize two new buildings for YMCA programs, depending how one looks at the arrangement) and why we decided to spend some $40 million to build just two fancy centers when the city would likely be much better served by building ten plainer, more neighborhood-centered $4 million centers?!

  • aaronlevi

    i still don’t understand why i voted for a sales tax to build 2 new facilities, pay this sales tax on almost a daily basis, and then have to drop $70/month for my family to use the facility (not including outdoor pool). it seems like the YMCA pulled off a pretty smooth deal for themselves. new free building, subsidized operation costs, but they still charge me the same rate as they would if i were at any other YMCA in the greater St. Louis area. i’m a huge Y supporter, love using the facility, but this arrangement has always confused me.

    also, the quality of the carondolet facility is not in line with the price tag. the men’s locker/shower facility is atrocious. water doesn’t drain right, so there is always puddles of someone else’s dirty shower water, all of the metal fixtures are rusted, and the shower area generally smells like sulphur-seems to have something to do with the plumbing. very dissapointing.

    • guest

      Aaron, why quibble over a few cents? Next you will be asked to pay another sales tax to redo a national park (the Arch), after city aldermen promised city taxpayers that a recently approved tax to improve parks in the city would the last. Wouldn’t you rather use those same few cents to pay your monthly pool surcharge at the Carondelet or O’Fallon Park Y? Here’s the answer – maybe they should build a new public pool at the Arch! After all, the legs of the Arch do straddle north and south St. Louis :-)

      • aaronlevi

        can’t tell if there is sarcasm here or not, but….1/8 cent doesn’t seem like much, which is why i chose to vote for the proposition. however, if you break it down. I spend approximately $300/month on groceries for my family, that 1/8 cent tax equates to $450/year. so now my ymca membership is now over $100/month. factor in other shopping i do in the city and the 1/8cent sales tax on those items, and i’m guessing my YMCA membership is costing me close to double of the $70 i give directly to the Y. I’m okay with that, so as the tax money is going toward helping people truly in need and not simply subsidizing the YMCA so that they can produce an unsustainable product (i’ve been told by a Y employee that most of their facilities in town are in fact not self-sustaining).

        • guest

          And therein lies the problem – operating costs eat you alive. Not even the mighty Y, with its secret subsidy formula, can afford to cover the costs of running a first class facility on the meager sum they collect. How much do taxpayers in, say, Kirkwood, or Clayton subsidize the operations of their showy facilities each year? Know that and you’ll start get a sense of why it’s so difficult to do so in the low rent city of STL.

  • RyleyinSTL

    $70/month is a deal so far as I’m concerned. For my $70 I can use both the SouthCity YMCA few blocks from home (another new-ish beautiful facility) and also the new Carondelet location as well. No one on the south side is getting a bum deal so I’m not sure how north side folks feel differently. That’s $70 for the whole family! Free childcare while you work out/go for a run and a safe place for the kids to play b-ball after school.

    The YMCA has programs to help those less fortunate with dues/fees but you need some paying members to keep the doors open. Mothballing a ~$20 million dollar facility because a chunk of your constituency can’t afford to go is borderline nuts.

    • http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

      To some squeezing $7 a month out of their budget would be a challenge, this is true north & south and regardless of face. But the sales taxes they paid on food, clothing and other necessities helped fund the construction of both building and the proposed subsidy.

  • moe

    Nice to see that everyone is ignoring the politics of the situation. And Yes….that is all this is.

    • guest

      A million bucks a year? Just politics? Oy! I wish I could snap a finger and raise a million bucks a year! Who is supposed to pay for this?

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