The Town of Vienna is considering building a municipal pool/weight room, at an initial cost of around $32M, including the purchase price of the land it sits on. The projected ongoing annual cost to the taxpayer appears to be in the neighborhood of $500K. Ish. But that’s net of a projected annual revenue of about $1.7M.
This new facility would provide people in the area an opportunity to purchase a roughly $1,000/year family membership, or pay (say) $10/head/visit.
And yet, everyone in this locality already has that opportunity. Except for the location, the smaller size, and the more limited facilities, this proposal from the Town of Vienna appears to be not much different from the existing Fairfax County Rec centers in this area.
But, near as I can tell, the Town’s analysis ignores the existing government-run gyms in the area. Above, left, is the view of the market area that was delivered to Town Council this past September. Above right, I’ve added in the three nearest Fairfax County rec centers.
I will again state that these County rec centers are very nice facilities. The Oakmont rec center is, by far, the nicest gym that my wife and I have ever used. Our local Fairfax County rec centers offer a broader range of activities than the Town can offer in this location, up to (e.g.) golf courses.
Other than location, the only unique aspect that I saw for the Town’s proposal is that it leans toward having a “fun” indoor pool (= child oriented), as opposed to the more serious (= exercise-centric) indoor pools found at the County rec centers.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone in Vienna who wanted to pay $1K/year for a family membership to a government-run gym and indoor pool has long had the opportunity to do so. That fee gives your family access to a set of rec centers that is top-notch, and offers a broader array of facilities than than the Town can offer.
This would suggest that any projection of revenues, from the Town’s pool, ought to be done conservatively.
Seems like a good place to start, then, with a realistic project of likely Town of Vienna revenues, is with those Fairfax County rec centers.
I thought I should do a straight-up projection of likely revenue, based on what Fairfax County has experienced with its similar, but better, rec centers.
In effect, these are the revenues to be expected if the Town is able to sell its government-run pool/gym to its own citizens (only!), to the same extent that Fairfax County is able to sell its rec center services, to its citizens.
Here’s how the two compare.
All I’ve done is taken the observed Fairfax County rec center revenues per Fairfax County resident, and boosted them for the higher average incomes in Vienna.
Alternative simple estimate: revenue per square foot. An alternative way to get at a similar estimate is simply to take rec center revenues per square foot, for the county, and multiply by the proposed square footage of the Vienna municipal pool facility. Like so:
Again, the result is nowhere near the Town’s projected revenues. Edit: In hindsight, I screwed that up, the revenue number should be more like $22M, and the resulting revenue per square foot more like $750K. Still a long way from the projected $1.7M for the 30,000 square foot proposed Vienna pool/gym.
Finally, there is limited public information available for Herdon, a nearby Virginia Town with a larger, but less affluent population. Herndon maintains a pool/gym, indoor tennis courts, a golf course, and other amenities.
In total, Herndon’s Parks and Recreation revenues — from a roughly 60% larger citizen population, and a far broader array of offered services — was $1.8M, per their most recent Comprehensive Financial report (2023 report, Exhibit A2). I get the vague impression that most of that revenue came from the golf course, but I was unable to pin it down any further. (Edit 10/26/2024: Upon reading Herndon’s budget, that must be wrong. They maintain distinct funds for their Golf Course and their cemetary. So figures pertaining to golf course costs and revenue should not appear on (what I hope was) an analysis of Herndon’s general government fund.)
In any case, this again suggests that the Town’s estimate of revenues, for the proposed municipal pool, is optimistic. Presumably, all it would take is a phone call, from Town of Vienna to Town of Herndon, to get the actual annual revenues from Herndon’s municipal pool. (Edit: If such a figure exists, e.g., if Herndon has a way of tracking specifically revenue for use of the pool/gym facility)
Will our Town Council do that much due diligence before proceeding further?
Maybe they already have, but there’s no easy way to know. At the current rate, it looks like the Town Council might get around to publishing the minutes from its most recent work sessions sometime this coming spring. (Thus, staying within the letter of the law, while keeping the citizens in the dark to the greatest extent possible.) Once the Town gets around to that, Edit: if they haven’t already voted to fund the pool, once they’ve voted to fund the pool, as this looks increasingly like a done deal to me, then maybe I’ll read those to try to find that out whether they bothered to ask Herndon about its revenues, from its municipal pool. My guess is we’ll never see that, from the Town, unless the answer is favorable to the “yes” decision to build our own government-run pool and weight room.
