Lessons Learned from North Battleford's CU Plex

Friday August 16th saw myself and three members of the Multi Use Building Committee (MUBC) travel to North Battleford to tour their new CU Plex and hear from Mayor Ian Hamilton and Bill, the facility manager. It was a great learning experience and the conversation amongst the four of us as we traveled informative.

Let me give you a bit of tour and I will explain as we go along the way.

Lobby arranged for meal.

The Entrance area of the Dekker Centre

As we entered the theatre facility we were surrounded by the sunlight and wide open space in which to have a reception for 400 with people standing or a couple of hundred with tables. Two catering companies have exclusive rights to serve food in the Dekker Centre. As the photos attest, the space leading into the theatre is a good experience.

The photo on the right is where you enter the lobby whereas the photo on the left is what you see as you approach the box office and the coat check.

The view from the front area is terrific and has surprised many people.

A view from the Lobby of the Dekker Centre in North Battleford - August 2013

The Ceiling in the Lobby

Creating a good experience is key and the design included attention to detail as can be seen by these ceiling photos. The focus for the manager is customer service ensuring that the evening's experience is as enjoyable as can be.                                                                  

Looking outwards to the overhang.

The Dekker Centre was a $14 million project with 50 cent dollars from the Federal Government. There were also significant private contributions towards this project. The Dekker Centre is run by an independent Board with the City having 3 members on the Board.

Dekker Centre has a capacity of 385 - it is 50 feet from the front of the stage to the back of the last row

At this time the City rents the facility to the Board for $1 per year and provides an annual subsidy of $220,000 on an operating budget of $575,000 with a full-time staff of 4 and many part-timers who only work if there is  an event.

The ropes required for rigging in their 87' tower.

Should you travel to the Dekker Centre to attend a show, like Colin James who is coming, then the box office will also collect $2 towards setting aside a reserve fund for the theatre. In time stuff will wear and break and need repair and replacement.

As you moved towards the back behind the stage they have a great area for performers to offload their equipment. The Dekker Centre strives to give both customers and performers a terrific experience to ensure they will return.

Large back stage space for equipment and carpentry.

Performers have access to a green room, where they wait before performing. There are also two good sized dressing rooms with mirrors everywhere.

Way too many mirrors for my comfort; but, the dancers love them.

Moving on from the stage area and around the corner from the dressing rooms is the kitchen which can serve 400 hundred people. In our discussions so far the kitchen is considered very important.

Doing dishes for 400 settings the easy way.

The theatre has a hall for dress rehearsal and functions of 200 or less. The floor in this room is the same as on the stage.

Rehearsal hall and function room for crowds less than 200 people.

The facility is impressive. It has been the manager's experience so far that seating for 385 is working. Booking acts is a combination of finding the right time to fit the right cost. As an example he said that if you want an act for Saturday it may cost $50,000 but for a Tuesday it may only cost $10,000. Booking an act is also dependent on a groups travel resulting in a small travel day to do laundry and yet perform.

Have a positive experience

What I am thinking is that for the theatre to be successful seats need to be sold and patrons have to have a continuously positive experience. Consider this: not all shows sell out: as a result patrons experience should not be affected by empty seats. The more nights the theatre is booked the more revenue it will increase. However, not every show on every night will attract 385 people.

Because the CU Plex is 4 separate buildings there is no unifying place for people. To address this issue the designers came up with the 'plaza.'

The Plaza at CU Plex

It is possible to hold outdoor performances in this space and they are also considering other uses such as an outdoor skating rink in the winter.

The next facility we visited was the pool; a beautiful facility.

A great pool; it made me envious

The pool is about 40,000 square feet and included a 6 lane swimming pool 25 metres long for competitions, a steam room (yea!), whirlpool (yea!), a wave pool, and two water slides of which one is a 'rocket.' The pool cost $24 million to build with an annual operating budget of $1.4 million. The Province of Saskatchewan contributed $7 million to this project.

The Yellow Rocket Ride

The policy in North Battleford is 50% cost recovery leaving the City to subsidize $700,000. The facility manager feels strongly that the wave machine is a strong attraction for swimmers. With this statement I now have to confront my bias against the wave machine based on cost (approximately $1 million). The pool has about 70 or so employees who are mostly lifeguards and water instructors. The people with this skill set are generally hard to find. The City started a couple of years ahead of the build training people for the positions.

The final facility we saw was the fieldhouse. It was impressive as well. The staff commented how surprised they are with the amount of use it is receiving.

One half of the fieldhouse which is half of a soccer pitch.

The other half of the fieldhouse has a more gym like structure to it. The staffing at the fieldhouse is about 5.

Set up for badminton, tennis, and basketball.

The fieldhouse was an $11 million facility that was a design and build compared to the pool and theatre which were build to design.

Bene Notes

Overall the project came in at about $60 million. Not all of their 'committed' partners kept their initial commitments. At the beginning the City was looking for an even split in funding from the Federal Government, Provincial Government, and the City. Instead the City raised $10 million and kicked in approximately $22 million to make it happen. Another funding partner was Western Economic Development Corporation.

Its a long path to build our project.

The project was very challenging and one of the toughest parts was finding the right person to champion the facility for fundraising purposes. It took them three tries over almost 4 years to get the right person. This will be critical to Kindersley's success.

Almost all of the naysayers are now on board and appreciate the new facility.

There is more I learned in my conversations with Mayor Ian Hamilton and I am looking forward to learning more. I am still thinking on some of our conversation and will share more as my thoughts mature.

Next Steps

The next steps are to accept the letter from the Multi Use Building Committee and then have a round table conversation with interested parties to agree upon next steps. Some of those next steps includes establishing an arms length Foundation to lead fundraising, a building committee to steer the project, and develop benchmarks to ensure we are on track to realize Option A.

We need help and contact me if you want to be a part of one of Kindersley's and West Central Saskatchewan's most significant project in our generation. If you want to leave a tangible legacy for the next generation, if you want to tell your friends that you helped build this, and if you want to make a difference in Kindersley and West Central Saskatchewan, then email me and we will talk.

Looking at the artificial turf from the walking track through protective netting - lets put barriers down and build

Surgite!