There's been a lot of brouhaha around the process for the development of the Christiansburg Aquatic Center, yet now it's time to establish procedures. See the draft business plan here.
The Town Manager had indicated council would "take the heat" in this process when determining fees charged for special events and memberships, as well as setting the operating hours for the facility. That job is before council now, and it will be interesting to see whether this is addressed at a regular meeting or in work sessions which would ensure the topic is finally discussed in detail by members in the public eye. Based on past practices, a good guess is this will occur one-on-one, off-line, via email or at other functions where council members bump into each other.
Concurrently, council is looking at how it will utilize 15% of 1% of all lodging taxes to promote tourism in Christiansburg. So far, the discussion seems to have focused on supplementing existing town budgets.
The aquatic center's business plan allocates just $6000 for marketing in this maiden year. The plan also notes there are numerous niche markets to attract -- youth, individuals, family and seniors, competitive school teams or swim clubs, as well as specialized interests such as water safety/rescue, water sports or even triathlons.
If the Town Council is hoping niche groups or clubs will market the aquatic center for them, they are in luck. A triathlon scheduled for mid-April has been pushed back until October and is already being well promoted by others. So are some of the local lodgers, and this may bring additional tax revenues to town coffers as touted.
Meanwhile, keep your eyes and ears on the Town Council -- they need to ensure the operating budget is feasible and this means most funding comes from memberships. Membership value will be based upon access, which means operating hours and dates when special events are not scheduled. And then there's the lease agreement with Virginia Tech, first meeting minutes for the center's advisory board and the "ownership" fund raising which all have updates due.
Along with the fiscal year budget development now due, updating 20 years worth of Town Code changes, hiring a new Treasurer/Financial Director, tourism and economic development, historic district overlays, building a new fire department, and numerous other needs -- council will be very busy for the foreseeable future.