Dear Swimmers,
Do any of you have any infromation on pool rental rates for masters teams? What is a fair lane per hour rental?
Our club in Moutain View Masters rents from the City of Moutain View. The city is considering raising rates 122%. That would put the rate at over $100 per hour and will probably cause our club to leave or heaven forbid disband. We have been a club over 20 years, we have mambers who have been swimming with us for decades.
Does anybody know what a market rate is for pool rental in various areas, we are in the Bay Area of Northern California.
Our club is in trouble like Walnut Creek, we hope to remedy the situation with some facts and we are fighting for our program. I think we all might agree that quality of life is closely related to our friendships and physical health, and in our society today it is tragically easy to fall into ill health and become alienated from the community. I treasure Mountain View Masters like most of you probably treasure your teams and clubs. Heck, we are spontaneous solutions to the challenges of our society and should be valued by our cities, not dismantled like what is happening in Walnut Creek, and now MVM.
I am hoping that with some facts we can get through this challenge as long as we treated equitably and offered a market rate by the City of Mountain View.
Any help you can give would be appreciated.
Sincerely,
Scott Lanterman
President Mountain View Masters
btw Walnut Creek . . . I wrote the mayor and told them not to mess with one of the best clubs in the nation.
I swim in a pool that is 50m by 25 y. We have 3 age groups and 1 masters team that call it home in addition to their aqua workouts and lessons and, during HS season, several HS teams. The pool is a joint venture of the County, City and the college in which it is located.
Last I heard, rental groups are charged $20 per hour per lane.
I hope that helps.
One piece of leverage I think you have to use against the city is that you give the pool income during a lot of times of the day when it would otherwise probably sit vacant. It is not open to the public during those times, so it is you're giving free money to the city - and it's not like they're losing money renting to you.
I don't know what typical recreational pool use is like in MV, but I don't imagine a lot of people would head to Eagle for a splash either... so even if they do open early, you guys would likely bring them more money than rec swimmers.
As for rates, assuming you're paying $50 per hour now, that does seem a bit low, but again, it's not like you're stealing pool time from the facility/other groups. How are they arriving at their $100+ figure? What kind of data do they have to justify this increase? I would ask for it if I were you.
Doubling rates like that is totally uncool, and if they do need to raise rates, see if they can agree first to a reasonable figure - then get them to do a graduated plan. For example: negotiate to $70, and have the current rate go up $10 this year, and $10 next year.
Take it a step further and get them to commit to you that they'll keep whatever their rate is for 5 years or something. Get transparency into how they arrive at the rates they'll give you - and get team representative input in a review process for after the current term is up.
All this should give you guys ample time to figure out how to make up the extra $$ you owe the city. Host a few more meets/clinics and get everyone else in your area to pay for it, rather than having to go to your team to raise dues, which by the way, seem pretty inexpensive given the number of workouts offered.
If you've been there for 20+ years, I would assume there are some relationships between MVM and the city that have been built that you can use to your advantage. Hopefully it will all work out.
... How are they arriving at their $100+ figure? .
This is CALIFORNIA ('re talking about, and subsequent to Big Spill, future profits from drilling can't be tucked into this year's budget as a virtual offset. Anymore.
Maybe its sovereign debt will be downgraded.
Seattle charges $65/hour for the 6 lane, 25 yard pools and $108/hour for the 8 lane, 50 meter pool. On the other hand, there's discussion of closing pools due to budget reasons, so maybe they should be charging more.
My regular masters team uses the U of Washington pool. They charge us $80/hour and also require us to have lifeguards even though we have a coach. That can push it over $100/hour (they charge $15/hr for lifeguards, but sometimes there are two lifeguards). It's a lot, but if you've got 25 people in the pool it's only $4 per person per hour. You definitely want to make sure you've got plenty of people in the pool, though!
The issue of pool availability and pool operational costs is of growing concern to all of us in Aquatics (i.e. USA Swimming, USMS, Synchro, Water Polo, diving, etc.).
USA Swimming has the infrastructure in staff and hosts six conferences a year on pool programming, pool costs and how to build a pool. USMS has partnered with USA Swimming and has access to their staff and resources to provide education and information assistance. USA Swimming's interest, like all of ours in aquatics, is to keep facilities open. It takes a well rounded programming effort though to accomplish this.
Attached is a document that gives detailed information on average facility/lane rates for SCY and LCM. Additionally, you can get very good information at www.usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx.
If you would like even more information, you may contact Sue Nelson at USA Swimming: 719-866-4578.
Rob Butcher
Executive Director
U.S. Masters Swimming
