While an auditor scrutinizes a whole bunch of numbers related to Rock Chalk Park, there is one set of numbers everyone seems pleased with: the latest figures on users and revenue at the city’s recreation center at the sports complex.

“I think not only are we pleased by them, but really we’re awed by them,” said Ernie Shaw, the leader of the city’s parks and recreation department. “I don’t think anybody had any idea that we would see numbers like this in the first three or four months.”

As we’ve previously reported, the recreation center — Sports Pavilion Lawrence — has been drawing between 50,000 to 60,000 visitors per month since it became fully operational in October. But January was the first big month for the 181,000 square-foot center to host large youth tournaments. Attendance jumped to 80,144 in January. Basically that’s the equivalent of hosting five sold-out Kansas University men’s basketball games in a month.

The city’s latest report also included for the first time some projected revenue numbers for the center. Parks and recreation officials are now reporting the center has 36 tournaments booked for 2015. Those tournaments are expected to generate just shy of $160,000 in rental revenue for the center. In addition, the department either has finalized or is close to finalizing agreements with six sporting organizations that plan to hold camps or other events at the center in 2015. Those events are expected to add another $90,000 in rental revenue.

That puts the city on pace to receive $250,000 in rental income at the center in 2015. That’s important to the city’s budget. The recreation center never was designed to directly make money for the city, or even to break even. City Manager David Corliss told commissioners early on that he expected the center would have about $1 million in operating expenses per year, and hopefully would generate about $600,000 a year in operating revenue. The shortfall would be made up through an annual infusion of sales tax funds.

Obviously, $250,000 is not $600,000, but there is still one more large revenue generator for the recreation center that hasn’t been accounted for yet. The center also is expected to generate new class fees for the parks and recreation department. The city, however, doesn’t have an estimate yet on what those numbers may be for 2015. But Shaw expressed optimism that they’ll be significant.

“I think we’re pretty much on track to meet our budget goals,” said Shaw, who did note that it is taking more personnel to run the center than the department had expected. But he said thus far that is not likely to result in an increase in the overall budget for the center, but rather just a readjusting of various line items within the budget.

It may be a little difficult in the future to figure out just how much revenue Rock Chalk Park is generating for the city because it won’t be as simple as just counting the number of classes that are held at the facility. Shaw noted that the space at Rock Chalk has allowed opened up space in the other recreation center for classes, which would not otherwise be available if not for the new recreation center.

Probably the best number to keep an eye on will be the total revenue figure for the recreation division of parks and recreation. That’s where all the class and league fee dollars flow through — everything from aerobics classes to adult softball. The hope is that total revenue number will grow now that the city has more space to offer more classes and activities. In 2014, the city collected about $2.2 million in recreation revenue. In 2015, it is budgeted to collect $2.8 million.

Look for some more numbers in the future. The city has been asking tournament organizers to survey their participants to determine how many are spending the night in Lawrence as a result of the tournaments. That has been hard to determine otherwise. Thus far, the tournaments have largely attracted teams from the immediate region rather than from multiple states. Officials have noted it probably isn’t likely that teams from Kansas City and Topeka are spending the night in Lawrence, but perhaps some teams from Manhattan, Salina, Wichita and other such locations are. Look for those type of numbers in the next few months.

Some other interesting numbers from the city’s latest report include:

• Area residents were still plenty interested in recreation classes in 2014. The $2.2 million in recreation programing fees was up from $1.9 million in 2013. That’s an increase of about 18 percent.

• 178,931 visitors came to Sports Pavilion Lawrence between October and the end of December. That was more visitors in three months than any of the the city’s other recreation centers had for the entire 12 months of 2014. The next closest attendance number was at Holcom Park Recreation Center, which had about 147,000 visitors for the entire year.

• Attendance numbers at all the city’s recreation centers other than Sports Pavilion Lawrence were down for 2014 compared with 2013. Attendance at Holcom fell by 11 percent, the Community Building was down 9 percent and the East Lawrence center dropped by about 4 percent. But Shaw said those lower attendance numbers aren’t a bad thing. One of the concerns prior to Rock Chalk Park was that the city’s existing centers were overcrowded, and it was particularly difficult for neighborhood users to just drop by and have opportunity for free play at the center. Shaw said as more league games and practices have been shifted to Rock Chalk Park, that has opened up more free play opportunities at the neighborhood centers.

In other news and notes from around town:

• The way city commissioners have gone about figuring how to attract additional high-speed gigabit broadband service to Lawrence has been a lot like many a pick-up basketball game I’ve played at city recreation centers: There have been frequent breaks for reassessment.

There was another such delay at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting. Commissioners are trying to approve a “fiber policy” (mine involves three bowls of Shredded Wheat per morning) that will regulate how private companies can have access to city-owned fiber optic cables that are throughout the community.

A big question in that policy is the idea of “open access.” That would mean any private company that uses any city-owned fiber to complete its network in Lawrence would be required to allow other companies to use any fiber it has installed in the city. In other words, say Company A wants to build a high-speed broadband network in the neighborhood just west of the KU campus. It would spend the few million dollars to bury fiber optic cable in that neighborhood. Then, Company A would splice that newly built network into a large city-owned fiber cable that runs along Iowa Street. That Iowa Street cable hooks into an even larger fiber cable that runs along Interstate 70, and — boom — we’re connected to the larger world. (Remember, this is just an example, and my technical expertise has only recently advanced to the point that I no longer giggle when people say ‘I just tweeted.’)

Here’s the key part about open access: Once Company A hooks onto the city-owned fiber, an open access policy would require Company A to allow any other company to use the fiber optic network it has installed in the neighborhood near KU. Company A would be allowed to charge the other companies a wholesale rate for use of that fiber, which would be a rate that ultimately would be regulated by the City Commission.

Joshua Montgomery, a co-owner of Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband, has been lobbying the city to adopt an open access policy. Some city commissioners have said they like the idea because they think it would benefit consumers by creating more competition. But overall, commissioners have struggled with the idea.

A city-hired consultant on Tuesday night told commissioners there was good reason to struggle with it. The idea of open access is admirable, but the consultant told commissioners it may do the city more harm than good.

“It is not necessarily going to result in what you are hoping for in Lawrence,” said Joanne Hovis with the consulting firm CTC Technology & Energy. “It potentially will make investors look at your market and see it as a less profitable market compared to others.”

In other words, instead of spurring competition, it probably will cause serious broadband investors to never build a network in the city to begin with. If they can build a network in one city and not have to share it with competitors, they’ll probably do that rather than build one that must be shared in Lawrence.

Plus, Hovis cautioned that if the city did try to mandate open access, the city could be subject to some lawsuits because it is not clear cities have the regulatory authority to require such open access.

“I would strongly recommend a legal review if you are going to do this,” Hovis said.

But putting the open access issue aside, Hovis told commissioners the rest of the city’s fiber policy looks “extraordinary.” She said the city-owned fiber network and the proposed lease rates for that fiber likely would be attractive to several private providers.

City commissioners, though, still did not act on the fiber policy. Instead, they said they want to review a few more provisions in it. In the meantime, two private providers continue to wait on the city to sign deals that would allow for gigabit service to be extended into select Lawrence neighborhoods.

Wicked Broadband — which if you remember has now dropped its request for a city loan guarantee — wants to do a pilot project in an area near Ninth and Iowa streets and one near Clinton Parkway and Wakarusa Drive.

Baldwin City-based RG Fiber is proposing a larger project that potentially would extend the gigabit service into neighborhoods along major city corridors such as Iowa, Sixth and 23rd Streets. It plans to do the Lawrence project in conjunction with a project in Baldwin City that will bring the super fast broadband service to Baker University and other homes and businesses in Baldwin City. RG has committed to have that service operational in the spring, and the company has said it needs to finalize a deal with Lawrence soon, or else it will have to use an alternative route to reach Baldwin City.

• While we continue to wait to become a high-speed broadband community, it is becoming clearer that we’re already a high-brow beer community. As we previously reported, downtown Lawrence again will host the Kansas Craft Brew Expo on March 7 at Abe & Jake’s Landing. But now, a second beer event has sprung out of that weekend.

The folks at Abe & Jake’s, the fine event venue along the Kansas River in downtown, have teamed up with the downtown restaurant Merchants Pub & Plate to host what they are calling “That Dam Beer Event” on March 6. The event will feature more than 14 craft breweries — all of them different from the breweries that will be at the Beer Expo the following day. The breweries will all feature limited releases or specialty offerings. Merchants will pair each beer with locally sourced food.

Mike Logan, owner of Abe & Jake’s, said the idea for the event came about because the Beer Expo often sells out of tickets. The name for the event plays off the idea that it will be hosted in the venue along the banks of the Kansas River and right next to the Bowersock Dam.

Tickets for the event are $50 a person. They go on sale at 4 p.m. today. They can be purchased online or in person at Merchants Pub & Plate, The Phoenix Gallery or the Granada Theater. Like the Beer Expo, this event also will donate a portion of its proceeds to Downtown Lawrence Inc.