Where can I look at those figures?

Not much solace for the student that just wants an education and not having to pay for someone else's extra's... the extra fees now equal the already outrageous tuition costs.

Wow , it brought in almost 300 thousand. The tax dollars was over one million. It has 189,000 left after all the expenses. And its in the black? The way I see it? We are in the red about $800.000.00.
Whoever wrote this sounds like he or she is on city council.
Once again, lack of businesse experience.And, once again we forget the tax payer is paying the $800,000.00. Oh did I mention that is for every year.
Have a nice day all my friends.

The Northern Sports Centre has two shareholders. A. UNBC. and B. The City of Prince George (Taxpaayers) They each contribute $300,000.00 per year to the Centre. If you look at their contributions as a subsidy (which it is) then of course the Sports Centre lost a huge amount of money.

The City and some of the people who run this facility refer to the contributions from UNBC and the City of $600,000.00 per year (tongue in cheek) as revenue, however everyone knows that in fact it is some creative accounting that was set up to blur the fact that this facility does not have a hope in hell of every being self supporting.

This wuld not be a major problem, except that when the concept was first put forward by Dezell and others they stated that it would in fact be self supporting based on the studies that they had done.

So watch out. You have the same dudes working for the Performing Arts Centre, and you can rest assured you will get the same results.

What also is not reported is all the extra help the University gives to the sports centre. Free technical support, extra dollars not reported here but on UNBC's budget report as extra dollars given to NSC, etc. It is loosing money hand over fist, but then again any recreational facility does. Just be honest about it please.

If you want to see the figures, they can be downloaded as part of the City Council Agenda package on the City's site.

If you call the City and make a request to see them, I would think the City Clerk's office on the 5th floor will give you a copy of that portion of the agenda. They are public documents.

The $600,000 subsidy is shared by the City and UNBC. I wonder if anyone is keeping track of who uses the facility more, students & staff or non-UNBC people?

"... the extra fees now equal the already outrageous tuition costs."

The tuition in this country is cheap.

Signed
A recent grad (UNBC 2006)

The original concept for this buildng was to charge membership (arbritarily) to both the Students and Staff, this was to generate approx $250,000.00 or more in revenue. Problem was the students and staff, told them to shove it. They had no intention of paying membership for a facility that they probably wouldnt use.

The Committee then came up with the concept of all students being able to access the facility for free. However what they dont mention is the fact that the recent tuition fees, probably included some money to be paid by UNBC to the Sports Centre. So in effect when UNBC is paying 300,000.00 to the Sports Centre, this money in fact comes from students, even though they dont use the facilities.

Most students do not use this facility, certainly nowhere near 2200 so that is a bloated number. Private membership is 550 a large portion of which join for walking purposes only, and therefore pay approx $265.00 per year. Full membership is closer to $500.00

There is no question that his facility is under utilized, and hardly used at all during the summer months. It is nice to have, however we should have just built some basketball courts, and weight rooms etc; for the University and left it at that. To build this monstrosity for $30 Million plus was probably not a good idea.

"To build this monstrosity for $30 Million plus was probably not a good idea."
No, not a good idea unless you were the contractor that was handed this project on a silver platter. They probably have not made as much on one project since- except for Duchess of course.
The PAC will be the next free ride for the select few contractors that know who's palms to grease.

OMG

What is wrong with you folks? This is a good news story-a city facility is in the black. Its a fantastic facility too. Imagine-an indoor running track in a winter city like PG. Besides, why would we want to have a top rate university without a sports center of some kind? Lighten up a little, guys. The sports center is to celebrated

"What is wrong with you folks? This is a good news story-a city facility is in the black. Its a fantastic facility too. Imagine-an indoor running track in a winter city like PG. Besides, why would we want to have a top rate university without a sports center of some kind? Lighten up a little, guys. The sports center is to celebrated"

I think the underlying issue people have is that when you factor in the subsidy of the facility, it is not in the black. Said another way, the only reason it's in the black is because of the injection by the city and UNBC, not because of "regular" revenue streams. If it weren't for those, it would not be able to recover the costs of operating the facility.

Now all of that aside, I think we have to look at this like ANY municipal facility. I don't think ANY of them make money in PG and I'd be shocked if any of them made money in most ANY city. We don't expect Kin 1/2/3, the Civic Centre, Fort George Park, the Aquatic Centre or the Ball Diamonds to turn a profit, so I'm not sure why people expect that the Sports Centre should.

Obviously it would be beneficial it these facilities did become self reliant (and they should be managed to try and achieve those goals), however, at the end of the day we also need to look at whether the injection by the city is a worthwhile investment for the city and not just stick to the "bottomline" argument.

I'd hazard a guess that the Sports Centre may actually be one of the more "profitable" facilities in town if you were to look at them all. Perhaps we should focus our attention on some of the others for a comparison. Maybe the library? Maybe the 4 Seasons Pool (do we really need 2 pools)? What about all of the ice rinks or ball diamonds? Maybe PG rec hockey and ball players should pay more dough if those facilities are also a drain on taxpayers. To be perfectly honest, I think this exercise should be undertaken. Maybe there are facilities that are simply too costly for the benefit they are returning. It would be an interesting analysis.