photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. is pictured on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021.

The Community Building in downtown Lawrence will stay open for free use through the end of 2026, but city leaders say they need more data before they make decisions about 2027.

On Tuesday, the City Commission voted 3-1, with Commissioner Mike Dever opposed and Commissioner Kristine Polian absent, to keep the downtown rec facility open through the end of the year using fund balance. It will cost $39,000 to pay part-time staff to keep it open through the end of the year.

“I certainly think we need to keep the Community Building open through the rest of the year, at least,” said Mayor Brad Finkeldei.

Memberships and fees for city rec centers started at the beginning of this year, but the commission twice before decided to keep the Community Building open and free on a trial basis, first through March and then through June.

The commission was asked on Tuesday not only whether to maintain that through the end of the year, but also whether to extend it into 2027, and whether to implement free access at the East Lawrence or Holcom Park rec centers next year.

Interim Parks and Recreation Director Lindsay Hart presented data that showed the Community Building had 6,830 visits through the end of May, and that the East Lawrence and Holcom Park centers combined had 7,246 visits in that time. Hart also told the commission that the department’s budget proposal for 2027 would not include funding for the Community Building, and keeping it open next year would require spending fund balance, increasing the property tax rate or cutting services elsewhere.

While they were confident that they wanted the Community Building open through the end of 2026, commissioners said they needed more data before they could decide on keeping it open in 2027, or whether to make the Holcom Park and East Lawrence rec centers free, too.

“You can’t make another move, you can’t make another shock, until you see how things are going,” said Commissioner Amber Sellers. She said that eventually, there could be data that showed the city had overperformed on certain aspects of its fee model, such as in tournament spectator fees or senior memberships, for example, but that currently “we don’t have a full picture in front of us.”

And Finkeldei said that making decisions for 2027 now would require the commission to make projections “with basically half a year of information.”

“I haven’t seen the rest of the budget, so I can’t say where it might come from,” he said of the funding to keep the building open in 2027. “… To me, I need to see the whole budget before I make a decision on that.”

Vice Mayor Mike Courtney was open to the idea of trying another free rec center. “Let’s make at least one or two of these” free in 2027 “to see what happens,” he said.

But Commissioner Mike Dever said that keeping the Community Building open this year had been enough of a change to the rec center fee model that the commission put in place.

“To be fair, when we opted to change the format for the Community Building, that changed multiple inputs to the model,” Dever said. “… We have to stop changing the inputs of the model. That’s what I’m concerned about.”

Through the end of May, the parks and rec department has collected $265,817 from memberships, day passes and punch cards, which is 59% of its $450,000 goal for the year. Courtney wanted to hear Hart’s thoughts on how the fees were working.

“Do you feel confident that we’re going to hit 450?” Courtney asked.

“I feel like we’re doing great so far,” Hart replied. “… I hope that I can stand here in December and say that we made it.”

But she too acknowledged that some things were difficult to project. She said that monthly memberships have dropped since earlier this year, because warmer temperatures make people more likely to go outside for recreation, and it’s still hard to see how having free access to the Community Building has affected demand for memberships.

At the end of the day, Hart said, the department had only five months of data to go off of.

“We honestly need about two years to be able to really, truly set some accurate goals,” she said.