Cities look to parks as economic drivers


What governments are spending on parks

2010 2011 2012 2013 (proposed)

Carlisle $14,498 $58,285 $44,877 $39,500

(20011-2013 includes $25,000-$35,000 grants from Montgomery County CDBG)

Deerfield Twp. $981,986 $819,186 $764,258 $1,000,000

Hamilton $1,313,214 $1,067,254 $1,137,876 $1,133,324

Lebanon $380,226 $483,788 $540,732 $630,751

Liberty Twp. Not Available Not Available $375,000 $360,000

Mason $955,856 $925,169 $850,000 $1,124,097

Middletown $632,908 $722,307 $770,134 $733,661

Trenton $148,408 $89,058 $102,897 $83,981

Warren County (non-Armco) $617,926 $662,085 $598,527 Not Available

Warren County (Armco) $949,071 $769,485 $798,000 Not Available

West Chester Twp. $503,203 $496,675 $474,889 n/a

Parks, once viewed as a drain on a community’s budgets, are now being explored by area leaders for their potential as multi-million dollar economic drivers through the lure of sporting events and other attractions that could bring thousands of visitors to the Butler/Warren area.

“We’re transitioning our philosophy when it comes to parks,” said Mason city manager Eric Hansen. “The city is needing our parks to be financially viable. That doesn’t mean that they become profit centers, but how we think about them has to rely on us being able to afford to maintain them. We need to develop amenities that can drive economic revenue in the area.”

Mason is not alone in this evolving view of a park’s usefulness. While no one will dispute that maintaining parks are a quality of life issue for residents, leaders in cities like Mason, Hamilton and Butler County are looking at parks as potential economic drivers to bring in revenue, even if they are not charging a direct admission fee.

The city of Hamilton is working with the Butler County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to explore the possibility of improving and expanding Joyce Park to turn it into a potential destination site for major sports tournaments that could bring in millions of dollars to the community, said Public Works Administrator Rich Engle.

“It’s still very much in the preliminary stages, but it’s something we think has potential,” Engle said.

The city of Hamilton has commissioned a plan to determine where Joyce Park could be headed.

Last year, the Butler County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and Hamilton brought the U.S. Archery Adult and Junior National Championships to Joyce Park, a weekend event that had a multi-million dollar impact on the community, according to BCCVB executive director Mark Hecquet.

Hecquet said sporting events are viewed as “recession proof” in many instances because parents want to give their children a chance to compete in a high-level sporting event, particularly a championship of some kind. So while other items may fall off a family budget — including the traditional family vacation — a trip to a major tournament is more likely to endure.

“All over the country, sporting events, especially for young people, are huge,” Hecquet said. “They bring families with high spending power and the events are very lucrative to communities.”

Communities benefit financially from the parks being used in a number of ways.

“We receive revenues because the groups using them pay us for use of the facilities, but they also help our economic base because those groups are coming in and spending money, be it at restaurants, hotels, or other facilities,” Hansen said. “The employees at those businesses are paying earnings tax. Parks can be used to help in a couple of different pieces of revenue.”

“In a lot of location’s cuts you’ll find governments have to make choices among services and often times parks and funding for parks gets eliminated,” said Kelly Barkley, Community Relations Coordinator for MetroParks of Butler County. “In order for us to provide what our park customers are looking for we need to be relevant. Those things are generally revenue driven types of activities. Events like the crazy cardboard regatta, pioneer days, races, summer camps – whatever our park customers are saying they want.”

Metro Parks of Butler County, working with BCCVB is currently developing 22 athletic fields at Voice of America Park in West Chester Twp.

“Butler County might not need so many fields for a local tournament, but we can bring in larger regional tournaments to bring in revenues and fund education and conservations efforts across the county,” Barkley said. “Programs like that bring relevancy and job opportunities to Butler County as a whole, and in that way, we see parks as revenue generators.”

Hecquet said Joyce Park could become a potential economic driver for the city of Hamilton.

“With Joyce Park, we’re looking at the potential to restore the park to turn it into a tournament quality type of field,” Hecquet said. “We believe it has the ability to draw tournaments but it needs care and attention to bring out-of-town teams into the county and the city.”

The Warrior Classic in Huber Heights, a prototypical example of these big tournaments with the juice to draw in out-of-towners, brings in an estimated 30,000 people to the Dayton suburb and has a $8 million economic impact on the Northern Dayton area over the course of Memorial Day Weekend each year, according to event organizers. Some area leaders hope to create their own sporting event that could potentially rival such a monster tournament.

Even though communities are eyeing sporting events as potential cash cows, few are injecting more money into parks in anticipation of these potentialities. A Journal News examination of local communities park spending found none that increased the budget substantially to parks in the past three years nor plan to next year.

Warren County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau organized 63 sporting events — ranging from softball and soccer tournaments to the Australian Rules Football — in 2012, filling 60,000 hotel room nights and having an economic impact of $40 million on the area said WCCVB director Phil Smith. For the past couple of years, the WCCVB has been attempting to raise funds for a sporting complex it would use exclusively to market as a economic driver type park.

“In some ways, we’re limited to what we can bring in by the availability of local parks,” Smith said. “That’s not a complaint. It’s absolutely the way it should be. Parks are first and foremost for the local taxpayers who are paying for them. The whole reason we entered into a conversation about owning our own sports complex is that we borrow from communities when it’s palatable for communities to let us use those facilities. The community leaders have to walk the line between having parks for citizens and for other people. There’s so much out there in terms of tournaments that could come in, that we just need more than what is available on a part-time basis.”

The WCCVB has been lobbying the state of Ohio to allow the county commissioners to raise lodging taxes by one percent in order to finance a potential sport complex. Davis said the WCCVB has scouted potential locations on Ohio 741 near Otterbein in Turtlecreek Twp. and the Warren County Fairgrounds, which will be losing its primary tenant, the Lebanon Raceway, after 2013.

“It’s still a waiting game at this point,” Smith said. “But it’s something we’re hopeful we can get off the ground.”

About the Author