In just over six months – from June to December 2025 – an estimated 45,000 people visited the PenMet Parks Recreation Center and its surrounding campus. Month-over-month we continue to see the number of visitors to the center increase as more people discover everything the center has to offer.
This exponential growth in such a short period emphasizes just how critical this facility is to our community – filling gaps in services that our residents clearly want and need.
This and other operational updates about the Recreation Center were shared with the Peninsula Metropolitan Park District Board of Park Commissioners at a March 3, 2026, study session.
What does the financial picture look like?
The biggest takeaway from the first six months of operations is that the Recreation Center is performing as anticipated both financially and through the programming offered.
Before a final decision was made to build the center, extensive financial modeling was done to understand long range impacts on District operations. This included what would be required to ensure long-term financial stability to maintain center operations without negatively impacting parks and facilities and District programming.
The modeling showed the Recreation Center would operate at a loss the first several years as it got up and running. This allowed us to plan accordingly.
As a public agency that is responsible for stewarding taxpayer dollars, PenMet Parks has implemented sound fiscal management policies to ensure continuity of services. In addition to wise spending decisions, we have steadily increased our strategic operating reserves overall to help ensure financial stability, including two years of debt service reserves to our Debt Contingency Fund to make sure we were covered if anything unexpected or unprecedented arises.
Bottom line: In the first six months of operations there are no financial surprises with how the center is operating. Regular financial updates are presented to the Board of Park Commissioners at public meetings, and to date everything is tracking as forecasted.
Measuring community impact
Beyond finances, the first six months of operations have shown how well the facility is serving the community. Where the private sector determines success based on a “return on investment”, as a public agency we also measure success based on value added to the community we serve.
The Recreation Center was not built with the intent that it would one day become a full revenue generating facility. Yes, we measure cost recovery, but customer satisfaction and community usage are also critical measures for performance.
As stated in our mission and vision, PenMet Parks enhances the quality of life for its residents through parks and recreation opportunities and by being a leader at providing health and well-being in a thriving community.
With the opening of the Recreation Center, we now serve more people than ever before.
We see 300 to 400 seniors visit the center every week. They attend classes, play pickleball, use the free Ben B. Cheney Foundation indoor track, attend group fitness classes, play BINGO, Mah Jongg and much more.
The Recreation Center allowed us to expand opportunities for our specialized and adaptive program participants. Through the center people now have access to a facility that is accessible and allows us to offer programming previously not available on the peninsula. Those who benefit from this programming can now stay closer to home and participate in activities with their peers instead of driving outside of our area to find services offered by others.
With the additional courts and indoor turf, we expanded our youth sport offerings and returned adult sports to our community – something we offered in a limited capacity before but can now offer at a much larger scale.
These are all critical pieces to consider when determining success of the facility – beyond a financial cost recovery piece.
Based on all this, we can confidently say the PenMet Parks Recreation Center is meeting or exceeding expectations and we are excited to see all the ways we can continue to serve the community through this state-of-the-art facility in the years to come.
View the full March 3, 2026 study session presentation (PDF).