A five per cent increase in fees at Genesis Place doesn’t seem to be causing much of a stir among users of the recreation facility.
As of Jan. 1, 2014 fees will be increased across the board for adult, family and daily use passes. Adult annual passes will jump from $495 per year to $519 and family passes with increase from $942 to $989.
The increase is to keep the building running at 100 per cent cost recovery, and with operating costs increasing in the coming year, the fee increase is a necessity to ensure that Genesis Place isn’t losing money.
Propak employee Rahul Lakhani uses the facility every Tuesday and pays the one day fee of $10.50 and says that he wouldn’t feel hard done by when fees for daily uses increase to just more than $11.00.
“For the annual pass users I think they might notice the increase a bit more and it might be a little tougher on them,” said Lakhani. “This facility is still fairly reasonably priced though, I’m a member at Talisman Centre in Calgary and I’m paying around $58 a month ($696 per year).”
Lakhani’s co-worker and annual pass holder Greg White says that Genesis Place is a very affordable facility and that even with the fee increase he’s still OK with the price.
“I still think that it’s fairly reasonable even with the increase,” said White. “I like it here, it’s a high quality and pretty new facility, it’s close to work and I can get here on my lunch breaks.”
Family pass users Eric Cid, Nicole Lessard and their two children Tyler (7) and Logan (5) are all members at Genesis Place and though they don’t find fees to be that cheap they say the increase isn’t unmanageable.
“It’s not that bad of an increase,” said Cid. “For the amount that we use the facility though it’s not exactly cheap.”
Cid and Lessard don’t use any of the facilities and their pass is used strictly to take their sons to the swimming pool.
“We don’t really have much time to work out or anything, it’s pretty much just for the kids,” said Cid.
“It would be nice if they (Genesis Place) offered something like just a pool pass for a bit less money because we don’t use anything but the pool,” Lessard said.
Money doesn't seem to be a concern when it comes to Genesis Place users, but parking space is another matter. Marie McIntosh says there will not be enough parking once the facility adds two ice rinks in the winter.
“I have no complaints with the fees, the problem that is most discussed is the parking issues that are going to be huge once the hockey arenas are open,” said McIntosh.
Genesis Place will house two new ice surfaces starting in the fall and with four teams playing at a time with upwards of 20 players per team, there is the potential for an increase of nearly 80 cars in the parking lot at any given time.
Greg Lockert , manager at Genesis Place says that phase three of the facility (completion of ice rinks) includes the addition of 120 parking spots at the north end of the building and that there is enough room to expand to 250 spots if needed.
“We have heard comments about parking at Genesis Place and it is a busy facility where we get upwards of 3,000 users per day rotating throughout the 750 spots that we have available,” said Lockert. “There will be access to the entire building through the arena so when the rinks open up people will be able use the arena parking and walk through the building that way if they need to.”
