Upper St. Clair rec center comes with $16.5 million price tag

Upper St. Clair officially will open its $16.5 million recreation and community center in Boyce Mayview Park on June 13, becoming the latest community to hope that such a facility can attract enough members, users and new residents to offset its price tag.

The massive center atop a hill includes a two-story, glass-enclosed lobby, two indoor pools, an outdoor pool, meeting rooms seating up to 240 people, a 10,000-square-foot fitness center, two full-size basketball courts and a 1/8-mile track circling the second level.

Its funding and construction were hot topics in the 2007 municipal election, and a $22 million bond for it was a factor in the first municipal tax increase in 20 years.

"It already has attracted people to Upper St. Clair. I've heard anecdotally of three families, where Realtors said the rec center was the clincher," said Ched Mertz, commission president.

Upper St. Clair is among several townships that recently invested in community centers and now are facing the same struggles to balance costs and benefits.

Mertz said an increase of eight-tenths of a mill in Upper St. Clair's 2009 property tax will go in part to repay center debt. At the new rate of 3.4 mills, the owner of a house worth $100,000 will pay $340 a year in municipal property taxes, or $80 more than last year.

Membership costs -- $459 a year for an adult Upper St. Clair resident, $688 a year for a nonresident, and $810 or $1,215 a year for resident and nonresident families -- will pay for the center's employees and upkeep, said Sarah Povazan, membership and marketing services coordinator. Between 2,000 and 2,500 people already have signed up, said recreation director Paul Besterman.

Because the large "living room" area at the center's entrance will be open to the general public, the commissioners passed a slight increase in the township's earned income tax, so nonmembers would pay for the public spaces. The average person will pay about $75 more per year in earned income taxes, said Commissioner Preston Shimer.

"Upper St. Clair, like a lot of suburban areas, doesn't have a downtown," Shimer said. "For people who don't have children in the school system, there's really no place for them all to meet and congregate."

Mark Hamilton, who led a community group in 2007 that sought unsuccessfully to have the center's construction put to a vote, said the center was "bigger and more beautiful" than he'd anticipated. Hamilton is now running for commissioner, and part of his platform is marketing the center so it pays its own bills.

"It's a beautiful -- though I may add, expensive -- resource for our community," he said. "We've got it, now let's make the best of it."

Ross borrowed $6 million to open a combined recreation and municipal center in 2002 that included a gym and classroom facilities, but also has space for the township's police department and administrative offices. Fees for activities and classes pay mostly for the teachers and staff, and township commissioners are discussing an identification system that will allow residents to use the facilities for free while nonresidents pay a yearly fee, said township Manager Wayne Jones.

"We don't make any money off of it -- in fact, I'm sure we lose money -- but it's an investment for the residents," Jones said. The center is well-used, and could be a factor in attracting people to the community, he said.

Peters opened a 38,000-square-foot recreation and community center in 2004. By cutting out plans for an indoor pool and building a smaller facility than Upper St. Clair did, Peters kept the price tag to about $5 million and avoided a tax increase, said Parks and Recreation Director Michele Harmel.

The center started charging membership fees in November 2007, more to limit the number of nonresidents who were using the facility than to make money, Harmel said. For example, family memberships -- which make up 1,171 of the 1,735 memberships sold in the last 12 months -- cost $20 a year for residents but $360 for nonresidents.

"I don't know if we will operate at a profit, but (building the center) wasn't necessarily done just for an increase in revenues," Harmel said.

Pine's $8.3 million, 34,000-square-foot recreation center opened in January, offering two gymnasiums, as well as public meeting spaces and an indoor track. Its completion was delayed by a year and is still the subject of a lawsuit against the township by contractor Reginella Construction Co. of Ross.

The $10 million bond issued to pay for it did not require a tax increase, and getting memberships to cover the operating costs was also the township's goal, said Joni Patsko, director of parks and recreation.

Wilkins is spending $250,000 to convert a spare ambulance bay into a far more modest community space. Officials are trying to decide whether it will be rented out for special events, or whether it will be a youth or senior center, said Commissioner Michael Szoko.

Szoko suggested that the township sell the naming rights to the facility for up to $25,000, "so it can be self-sustaining to some degree." But he worried there wouldn't be enough demand to support the center.

"Kids' schedules these days are loaded; I don't think they have the time to sit around a community center," Szoko said.

Commissioner Joe Costa, a supporter of the project, said the new center would provide additional space for the township's nonprofit organizations and community gatherings, which now use the same multipurpose room where the commissioners hold their meetings.

"We're lucky we haven't ruined the carpet in there yet," Costa said.

The drive to offer such amenities isn't just a matter of competing with neighboring municipalities for residents, said Upper St. Clair's Besterman.

"So many colleges and universities have these recreation centers," Besterman said. "As they graduate and start looking for a place to move, young professionals are going to look for those kinds of facilities."