Opinion: How the Park Authority’s increasing focus on parks-as-a-business is bad for us

The pool at the Oak Marr RECenter has a beach area and hot tub.

By Marie Reinsdorf

A friend returned from a swim at Oak Marr RECenter recently and proclaimed: “It’s big, beautiful! Compare it to Providence. Where Audrey Moore is the Chevy, Oak Marr is the Cadillac.”

Well, I told her, that is by design. Starting with the 2012 park bond, the Park Authority has been looking to revenue “profitability” as the driver in prioritizing bond spending.

Oak Marr in Oakton and the Spring Hill RECenter in McLean got big chunks of the 2012 bond prioritized over other RECenters, because of the higher income levels in their service areas.

Related story: Proposed park bond omits renovation for Audrey Moore RECenter

Propping up the bottom line

Several hundred thousand dollars of the 2012 bond funding were allocated to a “signage and branding study” to increase “market awareness of RECenter and golf enterprises.” That is not a large sum as a share of the entire bond referendum, but it does indicate the Park Authority’s desire to spend bond money on parks as a business enterprise.

“We must not become a country club,” were the oft-declared words of my fellow Park Authority board member Harold Pyon, who resigned before his term ended, because he could not get support for designating bond funding for regular park maintenance.

I think of his words often. Our RECenter fees are higher than those of surrounding jurisdictions, and we offer no reduction for those who cannot afford them.

I wish I knew how much bond money we have spent on golf. Golf is a nice sport, but we have no reports that would illustrate its share of the spending pie relative to other deserving entities.

The enterprise known as the “revenue fund” is now receiving funds that were originally designated for other purposes.

Starting several years ago, monopole cell tower lease revenues, which were designated for park maintenance (80 percent) and natural/cultural resource work (20 percent), have been transferred into the revenue fund.

Marketing RECenters 

Let’s look at the 2018 report commissioned by the Park Authority, “FCPA System-Wide Sustainability Plan for RECenters.”

The report is packed with sophisticated market analysis, even measuring the square footage of competing recreation facilities in each RECenter’s service area. Here are a few excerpts, focused on the Spring Hill RECenter [italics mine]:

Page 34: Service areas for Spring Hill, South Run, and Oak Marr are made up of households with the highest income levels. Spring Hill, in particular, has a household income level ($180,000) that is 26 percent greater than the next wealthiest area.

Page 50: Spring Hill’s direct alternative consumer options are primarily comprised of fitness centers. Among the direct alternative options, three facilities comprise 62 percent of direct alternative option square footage: Tysons Sport & Health (75,000), McLean Racquet & Health (110,000), and McLean Sport & Health (120,000). These three facilities are very large in scale and offer a wide range of activities. Spring Hill’s recent additions have assisted the facility in retaining its competitive positioning despite this competition.

And under “strategic recommendations” on page 154: Protecting the facility’s market share in a primary service area dominated by large chains should be a priority. In contrast to other RECenters in markets with similar levels of competition, Spring Hill is adequately sized to meet market demand and does not require expansion. As such, modest improvements are recommended to protect recent investments [general obligation bonds].

To me, this is backwards. If the private sector is doing a good job providing what the market-rate paying public desires, why are we pouring precious public resources into competing – and charging the same kinds of fees, thus offering questionable benefit to those who cannot afford these private clubs? We could just provide subsidized vouchers to people who need them. These businesses pay their own rent, fund their own capital improvements, provide employment, and pay taxes.

Hello, neighbor!

There is untapped opportunity for other kinds of revenue-generating capital-improvement planning.

How about cafés, conservancies, and other park-enhancing lines-of-business?

What about event space, or even small bistro/café facilities at places like Green Spring Gardens?  Events can bring in good revenue while providing beautiful park experiences. It’s more fun to visit a nice park if you can enjoy a salad or sandwich with a cup of coffee, and you feel good knowing the profits earned from the concessionaire go to our parks.

Related story: Park bonds: The public needs good reporting

We could also go back to bread and butter by shoring up community centers run by the county Department of Neighborhood and Community Services. That department also offers recreation but operates in a separate silo from the Park Authority.

Park Authority planning and service delivery should be integrated with NCS, which is charged with promoting the wellbeing of county residents. Instead, NCS is viewed as competition! See this slide from a February 2019 presentation to the Park Authority Board:

Massive projects

You may be surprised, as I was, to find proposals to build large new facilities, in the RECenter Sustainability report.

Under a theme titled “expand core services,” Brailsford & Dunlavey make the case for a new Park Authority RECenter in Reston. The estimated cost – on page 168 – is off their chart, which tops out at $50 million.

That report also proposes a new $50 million “competition sports center” operated by the Park Authority at a location to be determined. It would serve “non-local participants” and would “introduce non-local spending to a market.”

Both of those proposals are real plans, as they are in the Park Authority’s latest capital improvement program proposal submitted to the county budget office.

Crumbs for the rest of us

The Revenue Fund struggles for “sustainability” today, with what we have already. A new RECenter would further drain the available pool of general obligation bond funding, further starving the parks, nature centers, and other places.

Do you feel like a beggar, asking for maintenance or improvements to your local park? Or as a Friends’ group, asking for even a small upgrade, as you devote your time and energy to fund-raising for your park? Prepare to stay accustomed to that feeling.

Reston already has its own recreation center, and we ought to ask why the county is stepping in. The report says it’s for equity for Reston residents. It would help us understand this proposal if we can have a deeper discussion of equity across the county and all its people.

The Sports Center strikes me as something needing to be 100 percent financed by revenue bonds – bonds sold by the Park Authority directly and repaid from future revenue. It also seems a poor fit for a park system stretched beyond its capacity already.

Related story: The John & Margaret White Horticultural Gardens: What happened to the bond money?

We’re not only just facing less money for the regular parks, but less institutional energy.

I believe that if the Park Authority weren’t so focused on the business bottom line, there might be some oxygen in the room to strategize on things that matter to us.

In posted board meeting agendas and minutes, I found no mention of how the COVID pandemic is highlighting how badly the public needs community parks. The only discussion was about how the pandemic is hurting the bottom line.

I know people care. But the institutional capacity for focus on the not-for-revenue mission seems quite diminished.

Marie Reinsdorf is an Annandale area resident. This article is based on a review of the publicly posted Park Authority five-year archive of board committee agendas and other documents and a few memories from my tenure on the board (2008-12). The next article in this series will look at how other cities are focusing on the importance of vital parks even under budget constraints.