Osseo Maple Grove Basketball Association

In 2004, OMGBA established a Building Fund, as it saw a need within our community (Osseo High School and Maple Grove High School attendance areas) emerging for more quality basketball courts.

In 2007, it formed a Building Committee.

On June 8, 2011, OMGBA presented the following documents to the City of Maple Grove's Citizen's Advisory Committee.

Some committee members expressed how impressed they were with how prepared we were and how much money we've saved to date, and that we are ahead of where other youth sports were when they approached the city.

OMGBA's proposed building has 6 courts, with a 2 floor center cooridor. The courts are run lengthwise along this cooridor (which lessens the roof structure required, which lessens the wall heights required).

Each court has bleachers against the center wall, so spectators can enter each court and quickly take a seat, which has plenty of room, compared to some sites where spectator's chairs and feet straddle two courts, which can be a safety concern for players and spectators.

The bleacher location also reduces foot traffic and dirt entering the floors, reducing maintenance.

The upstairs cooridor is for concessions and viewing the games. Most facilities have one row of chairs set up along the 84' side line. These courts are planned to have 4 rows of bleachers, 60' long, and an elevated viewing area which will make for the best tournament basketball site in the state.

OMGBA has approved a $6.0M construction budget. OMGBA has done a lot of research, with architects, general contractors, etc. and feels comfortable with this number. Our construction budget, not counting the contingency fund and an elevated track, which we don't think is as needed with the new dome being built, is about $5.5M, so our budget has some wiggle room.

Of course attaching to a school could save some parking lot, landscape, etc. costs, but we think other costs will get driven up. Similarly attaching 2 three-court facilities to 2 schools will be even more expensive. We aren't opposed to this, however we have not bugeted for this.

If, when a site is chosen and we get further down the process, the construction costs require a greater committment on the part of OMGBA, we'll of course need to review this with our board and seek approval.

OMGBA saw the need for more courts within our community years ago and took action starting in 2004. We've modestly raised fees and volunteers have helped us grow our tournaments which is our largest fund raiser. This has helped us save money for the Building Fund and also has demonstrates our ability to cover a large portion of the anticipated costs associated with operating such a facility.

With a new facility, we'll be able to grow our tournaments and add more tournaments, and gain revenues from multiple new programs and partnerships and are confident we can cover the operating expenses we expect, including covering a long term major repair fund (for roofs, parking lots, HVAC, court floors, etc.). OMGBA has approved an operating budget of $215,000 per year at this point.

OMGHA (hockey) has partnered with the city to add a sheet of ice to the Maple Grove Community Center (city owned land). Hockey is expected to pay 20% of the construction costs and commit to enough hours and pay to cover operating expenses, long term.

Similarly Maplebrook (soccer) and OMGAA (baseball and fast pitch softball) partnered with the city to build a dome at Maple Grove High School (district owned land) for off-season use. They each agreed to pay 10% of the contruction costs (20% combined) and commit to enough hours and pay to cover operating expenses, long term.

OMGBA is hoping to structure a similar partnership with the city so that we can continue to serve our youth, grades 1-12, for two high school attendance areas with the same quality, and hopefully improve our programs and expand our offerings.

The CAC will likely next meet in September. We hope we can continue the discussion then.

In the interim, OMGBA needs to do more research on questions the CAC raised. For example:

• What hours we use facilities today and would with new facility
  • For instance, our presentation listed practice hours, but seemed low. and Initial research would imply it was very low, and probably only covered part of our program and only facility hours, not court hours. Early research shows we request over 15,000 court hours just for practice.
• What, if any, facilities we'll free up
• Identify a location(s)

and more.