Rolla built its recreation center with the idea that the facility would provide its residents with exercise and wellness options and would eventually break even financially. Twenty-eight years later, it's consistently been in the red.
The Centre has 2,000 paying members, many of them families, but the city still needs to spend more than $400,000 to keep the 65,000-square-foot facility open through the end of September.
“We built it at a time when community rec centers were being built all over Missouri and the Midwest,” said Mayor Lou Magdits. “What we didn’t do is put the funding in place that everyone else did.”
Phelps Health has agreed in principle to a five-year agreement to operate the exercise and activities portion of the facility in Ber Juan Park as part of its efforts to expand its wellness programs.
“We are looking at how to improve the health and wellness of the community,” said Phelps Health CEO Jason Shenefield. “Especially our patients who receive care or are dealing with chronic diseases.”
Shenefield said Phelps Health has a team that is starting to work on what those programs will look like, and how the Centre can be where they take place.
Shenefield said the hospital is big enough to absorb any operational losses the rec center has initially, although the plan is to bring it as close to break-even as possible. Phelps Health largely serves Medicaid- and Medicare-eligible patients, and those federal programs are putting a greater emphasis on funding health and wellness programs as preventive medicine.
“There's a lot of discussions going on right now with the Rural Health Transformation [Program],” he said, adding that running health and wellness programs at the center could be eligible for federal money. “There may be an opportunity to even try some of these programs and prove that they work.”
Phelps Health’s agreement with the city, if ratified by the city council, would give stability and a financial shot in the arm to most of the rec center facility — or at least most of it.
But the proposed deal doesn’t address the aquatics area, where Rolla is facing costs and questions.
Magdits said the aquatics area loses more than $250,000 a year, and that is not sustainable. Options include a sales tax increase to fund the aquatics area, closing the pool or renovating the facility.
He said having Phelps Health involved with running the rest of the facility will give focus to the question of what to do next.
“It really is going to allow us, as a community, to decide what we really want. I think as a community, we need some aspect of indoor aquatics. We're big enough,” Magdits said. “People want pools.”
The Rolla City Council will get an update on the Centre at its 6:30 p.m. Wednesday meeting, which is streamed on YouTube. There is no timetable when Phelps Health and the city could finalize the agreement or when it would go into effect.
