Golf Dome owner knows bubble pitfalls - Winnipeg Free Press

Sat Dec 17 2005

By Chris Cariou

CURTIS Gray wonders: Why hasn't Mayor Sam Katz talked to him about what it's like to operate a domed sports facility in Winnipeg's climate?
Katz visited the Superdome facility in Ottawa last summer, intent on checking out every available and cheaper option to the $13-million, brick-and-mortar four-field indoor structure (plus two fields with stands outdoors) that the Winnipeg Soccer Federation has been trying to get the city to approve since 2004.

The private company operating the Superdome says it can build a similar dome in Winnipeg for $5 million, and Katz has been listening. But Gray, the owner of Golf Dome Inc. on Wilkes Avenue, says a domed four-plex will cost more per year to operate and be more expensive in the long run than a conventional structure.

"I e-mailed Sam's office and either he or somebody else e-mailed me back and said they're sending people across the country to look at facilities," Gray told the Free Press. "And I said, 'Well, come here. You've got the best one in the country right here, come look at it, because you'll have a better idea of what you're up against with a dome and what the facility can do.'"

And what it can't. Gray points to a conventional four-plex in Edmonton that was built for $5.93 million in 2003, one he has seen his son play lacrosse in. It has everything from bathrooms to change rooms to stands, a restaurant and lounge. For only about $1 million more than a dome similar to Ottawa's, it could be built here, he said.

And unlike any dome structure, its roof would not have to be replaced in 15-20 years, he said, at a cost of somewhere around $2 million. Domed facilities are also more expensive to heat -- even moreso with Winnipeg's frigid temperatures -- and extra staff is needed to constantly clear snow away from the Tedlar-coated dome material or the dome will collapse, he said.

There are no stands for parents to watch their kids play and the Edmonton facility has four separate fields, whereas a dome would be one big field walled off by curtains to make four playing surfaces. Plus, a domed structure doesn't include change rooms, restaurants, bathrooms or other amenities -- it has to be attached to a bricks-and-mortar building that does.

Gray admitted while it could be seen he has a vested interest in no other domed golf range facilities coming to Winnipeg, he fears Katz and the city are not being given the straight goods on the advantages and disadvantages of domed buildings as opposed to the bricks-and-mortar complex the soccer community wants.

The city tabled the WSF proposal for 60 days on Sept. 21 and did so again last month.

"It's not a golf dome facility (that soccer wants and the city needs), it's a soccer facility that is going to have golf during the day," Gray said. "I don't think they're going down the right path... It should be a facility that's similar to what the soccer people have proposed in their business plan."

He said rentals for soccer, ultimate and other sports amounts to only about $60,000 a year at the Golf Dome, a virtually insignificant amount. In fact, more than 90 per cent of his revenue comes from the golf range from 6 p.m. to closing. So if the city's goal is to provide more access to indoor soccer, the golf dome model is not the way to go.

Gray said that based on rental rates he's charging and assuming other standard costs of business such as staff, management fees, maintenance, plus depreciation on a dome that will have to be replaced, he believed the golf/soccer dome model being considered by Katz would be a break-even proposition at best.

chris.cariou@freepress.mb.ca

email
this
story
printer
friendly
version