What a red herring. Then they make all the students pay a gym membership no matter what. It interferes with gyms operating around town. Now it will need a lot of maintenence. Yes a red herring.

Imagine a private developer building such a facility and having to not only recover $1.5 million per year for operation, but also the financing and repayment of $31 million in project cost. Without an investment, over a 20 year period at 5% a year that would cost roughly another $2.15 million a year.

So, in reality, if this would be a private enterprise, to achieve a break even one would have to recover a minimum of $3.65 million per year, with the operating costs escalating with time. That is around $120/year for each household in the City. Another way to look at it would be that for the full year, based on 4,000 students, each student would have to pay just over $900 which would escalate over the years.

BUT, that is not how any western civilized country works. And, on top of that, if you think it did not work that way 25 years ago or 50 years ago or 75 years ago or even 100 years ago in Urban North America, you are mistaken. Modern civilization is dependent on hard and soft infrastructure, whether it is roads as were built by the Romans from taxes, or gymnasiums to create “well rounded minds” at educational institutes. And that infrastructure was provided by the community for communal use in order to improve the well being of people and the well being of commerce.

1. The Provincial Government made the $20.5 million available for a sports related project, because of the Vancouver Olympics. There was no **strings** attached as far as I know except that it had to be sports related. They could have built a fully functional covered oval ice arena, or another ice arena, or some other project.

2. Other Cities in BC also received money from the Province. This money was mainly being paid out, because Vancouver with the Olympics, was getting the elevator, and the rest of the Province was getting the **shaft**

3. It was the **Local Yokels** who dreamed up the Northern Sports Centre, and at the time is was supposed to be revenue neutral. Ie; operating costs $900,000.00 per year. Revenue $900,000.00 per year. We now know that these figures were **bogus** and the centre has a shortfall of approx $600,000.00 per year. Made up by the City and UNBC.

3. This facility has not attracted enough people to make it a viable operation, and it should be turned over to UNBC to use as they see fit. I doubt if there are more than 500 boni fide members.

4. The cost of a membership is approx $365.00 per year, which is one reason why people stay away. Students have some sort of special deal however very few of them actually use the facility.

5. There are not now, nor has there ever been 4000 students at UNBC. Student counts as far as I know include the campuses like Quesnel, Ft St John, Terrace, etc; etc;. Even if they didnt, the actual number of FTE students is about 2900. Once you go to actual full time undergraduate and gradute students you have even less. If you have a person taking one or two courses at the University he may be referred to as a student, however he is not paying a full tuition for two courses, nor is he a full time student. Hence the term Full Time Equivelant students.

6. From a revenue point of view the Northern Sports Centre is a basket case, and we need to find some other way of running it.

7. The biggest problem is that this centre gets very little support from the people of Prince George. Having been a member since its inception, and going to the centre at different times of the day, and evening, I can tell you that very few people support this building. A rare sighting indeed would be to see a politician, or a member of the founding group which hatched this idea to actually show up at the centre and use the facilities. THEY ARE CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE.

If those who dreamed up this facility wont support it, then why would they expect others to???

PS: I did see a politician at the Sports Centre a few years ago, however it was Ralph Klein from Alberta, taking a walk through.

“If you have a person taking one or two courses at the University he may be referred to as a student, however he is not paying a full tuition for two courses, nor is he a full time student”

So, since he.she is not a full time student they have lots of time to use the sports centre so they should pay more. ;-)

I used 4000 even though the actual body count is likely higher because FTE should not matter for determining who pays and who does not pay. They have full access just like anyone else. If UNBC has a differential price for them, then I want the City to change that because as a city taxpayer who finds no use for the facility I am not willing to subsidize a part time student who is more often than not a part or full time worker in the city, even making over $75,000 at the City and taking a course or two to move him/her up a salary step when they complete a course or a graduate degree.

I do not mind if the person was part time because they were working at 3 MACjobs at minimum wage to pay their way through University. But I suspect no one wishes to differentiate, even though they should.

Since Palopu re-posted here from another thread, I will do the same since it deals with the Sports Centre and shows that private enterprise did not want to get involved with it since they could not figure out how to make money at it. The risk was too high for them even though the UNBC and City proposed for the private operator to only take on 1/3 of the risk.

It is a prime example of how people in positions of authority like to avoid negative facts, do not learn from such mistaken impressions, and make the same mistake over and over again.

I can almost guarantee that if Council gets into a cutting mood, they will be cutting some of the wrong things. They really have no business sense from what I can tell.
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The Centre was supposed to be operated as a full P3 project – Design, Build, Finance and Operate. That is the ultimate level of a Private, Public, Partnership project in governments’ eyes.

It was a project that was initially handled by PartnershipBC. The project information is still available on their web site. Read it for content, because it gives a good summary of the process and organizations involved.

http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/pdf/VFM_Charles-Jago.pdf

Three possible procurement options include:

• Traditional delivery – this option involves separate procurements for the design phase and the build phase in a linear process, often called Design-Bid-Build (DBB).

• Design-Build (DB) – this option involves developing one procurement process for both the design and build portion of the project.

• Design-Build-Finance-Operate (DBFO) – this option involves one overall procurement process for the design, building, operation and financing of the project.

Initially, the procurement process selected for this project was the DBFO model. A market sounding process was undertaken to ask market participants their views and assess responsiveness towards a flexible approach to consider different options for the project. As the procurement process unfolded, it was determined that a DB model was more appropriate for this particular project.
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There are a number of features unique to this project that supports the DB model versus the DBFO model. For example, the Centre will operate as an elite, Nordic sports training centre and it would have been difficult to find experienced operators due to the unique nature of the facility. In addition, the market sounding process suggested that although the DBFO model was favoured, the potential for additional revenue sources from programming opportunities at the Centre was considered a risk and therefore less attractive from an operator’s perspective.

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Here is what it states in the detailed portion of the report about the revenue projections:

The revenue risk was significant and it was not clear what the additional programming opportunities and sources of revenue might be.

• The scope of the project would have been difficult to define during the procurement process, particularly with regards to programming and revenue responsibilities, and the technical specifications. This would pose difficulties in defining performance specifications in an RFP format.

• There was a significant need for input from stakeholders during the project scoping and development of proposals for the project. Again, this would pose challenges for the RFP approach.

• The City and UNBC were willing to accept two thirds of the programming risk and wished to transfer one-third to the private sector operator. The response from the market indicated that although it was feasible to transfer that risk, it would be a challenge.
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So, some good work at the early stages, as I see it. Two publics, UNBC plus the City, were willing to take a third of the risk each, but they could not find a private partner to share that same risk.

Right here we see the difference in the purpose of Private versus Public. Private, unless there is a benefactor involved, is totally focused on finances; “show me the money”. A public purpose is focused on the social needs and wants and the social costs and benefits as well as the financial costs to the community. Private is focused on the needs of the company. Public is focused on the needs of the community.

Where the challenges come into play is that while the private enterprise is typically quite a simple entity able to come to quick consensus on what to do, the public enterprise is a very complex entity where consensus is very difficult to achieve and there will more often than not be significant numbers of people who will not agree to the actions taken.

And thus, we have Opinion 250 …. ;-)

“The biggest problem is that this centre gets very little support from the people of Prince George.”

It used to be common knowledge among people who design such places and operate such places which are also available to the community that there is a resistance to going inside a University or a College if one has not attended or has had a negative experience attending. How much that is still true today, I do not know.

The other thing that many of us understand is that that Nordic Sports Training Centre for Elite athletes in the Prince George area is located in the mountains which provide opportunity to practice snowmobiling and high marking. ;-)

Elite … yeah right. LOL

The sport center was a “ego” image project and the UNBC students could have used the sport and pool facilities just at the bottom of the foothill, if the 20 mil $ money was spent wisely on expanding the foothill facilities and providing transportation link infrastructure.

Half a million $ per year could have been wisely spent on reviving the PG downtown core center which is very depressed.

The last time I checked, they preached management of resources and sustainability in UNBC as the lessons from western civilization, but in practice they mismanage the financial and human resources, in the most unsustainable way possible, reminiscent of wasteful practices in an uncivilized Banana republiC (B…C).

As perviously stated, the original planning for the Northern Sport Centre showed income as $900,000.00 per year, and expenses as approx $900,000.00 per year.

There was no talk in the beginning that UNBC or the City would be on the hook for $300,000.00 per year to operate this building.

It was only later, after they determined that that there would be no Private investment, and that the $900,000.00 per year revenue was totally inaccurate that they came up with the scheme to have the City and the University fund this building.

Fact of the matter is, by this time the building was complete, and they really had no choice. It was either fund it, or close it.

We should not for a minute imagine that these people had a bloodly clue from the very beginning on this project, and even to-day they havent a clue on how they can get out of the problem they created.

We have a very small number of residents paying approx $350.00 per year membership. and a group of students paying substaintally less, plus some revenue from soccer, etc; and thats about that.

If we had another 1650 full time members paying $350.00 per year we would be ok.

Whats the chances of that happening??

Did the facility become named the Charles Jago sports centre before or after private or corporate investment failed to come through? Just another giant albatross built to benefit a few at the expense of the many and another reason of how we seemingly now cannot afford to keep our public pool open or have the end of our driveways cleared. Find it amusing that directors on this org. board are remunerated for their services. I recall at the their last presentation to council, how several council members were impressed at the list of “who’s who” on the board and expressed as much. So wait, I feel so much better now.

The original forecast for unbc students was 30000 or more! Unbc is stuck at around 3000 students. There is a whole science for project planning and cost managment and missing the target by 10 times in case of unbc students or a half a million per year for sport center show serious signs of mismanagment. Unbc was planning to open a silicon valley type research park also, but it was canceled at the final stages due to lack of money for construction.

I don’t know if the senior administration in unbc has any training in 101 managment or not, but they will benefiet from such workshops greatly.