Mozingo panel tours center, considers budget
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
City Manager Greg McDanel, right foreground, leads a construction site tour Tuesday of the new conference center at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park for members of the Mozingo Lake Advisory Committee. The group is shown standing on a large concrete deck that will overlook the lake and an “events lawn” to be constructed on the site of the current golf course clubhouse.
The Mozingo Lake Advisory Committee met this week for a tour of the new conference center/golf course clubhouse currently under construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
The tour of the 28,000-square-foot facility, now mostly enclosed and roofed, was followed by a preliminary budget presentation from City Manager Greg McDanel covering proposed Mozingo spending for the 2018 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The final budget will be approved later this month by the Maryville City Council.
When completed, the $4.7 million center will include a large banquet room, restaurant, golf pro shop, golf simulator room, cart storage, offices, restrooms and other facilities. McDanel said the first booked event at the center, a wedding, is set for Jan. 6. At least 30 other events are also on the calendar for 2018.
Finishing, furnishing and equipping the center, scheduled for completion around Thanksgiving, is a major factor in this year’s Mozingo budget, which is funded through a combination of user fees and a half-cent sales tax that usually brings in just under $1 million a year.
Total revenues for next year are estimated at more than $2.3 million, while spending is forecast at $2.9 million, with the difference of $585,000 to be made up from a reserve fund currently estimated at $786,000.
The budget contains a record $634,000 in capital spending for both operations and maintenance, with the lion’s share of that amount earmarked for purchases related to the conference center.
While McDanel acknowledged that the capital spending mark seems large in comparison with previous years, he noted that the total for fiscal 2017 exceeds $590,000.
He added that the park has a “healthy fund balance,” and that the time has come to spend that surplus in ways that will “establish the conference center at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park as a community and regional asset.”
Most of the capital spending for the center, he said, is in the form of one-time purchases for equipment and furnishings designed to enhance the facility’s intended role as a revenue generator for all park programs and facilities.
“Now is the time to do it,” McDanel said.
Investing such a large sum in the conference center will reduce the amount of projected Mozingo reserves to a little more than $200,000 by the end of September 2018, which is $50,000 less than the park’s “target” minimum reserve of $250,000, a figure equivalent to 20 percent of annual operating costs.
However, McDanel believes that, as in the past, actual expenses parkwide will be lower than budgeted. Also, as the conference center comes on line, city officials expect revenues to increase, allowing reserves to build back up over time.
In event of an unforeseen fiscal crisis, McDanel said the city would simply come up with some combination of reduced services and staffing and higher fees in order to keep the park solvent.
Making such cuts would be relatively easy at Mozingo, he said, because it’s function is to provide recreational opportunities rather than essential services like drinking water or law enforcement.
Capital spending planned for the conference center under the draft 2018 budget embraces $121,000 for carpeting, flooring, paint and room finishes in addition to $288,300 for walk-in cooler/freezers, a restaurant kitchen range hood, indoor/outdoor furniture, portable bars, banquet tables and chairs, catering kitchen equipment, audio-visual equipment and a pair of live-ball indoor golf simulators.
The golf simulators alone carry a combined price tag of $106,000 and are to be installed in a lounge-like space on the center’s ground floor that, in addition to practice and instruction, will be available for rent to groups seeking to hold events and parties featuring movies, driving-range games, televised sporting events and other attractions.
Additional expenditures presented to the advisory committee — all of which must still be approved by the City Council — include a 2.5 percent cost-of-living raise for Mozingo staff and several personnel additions, including a full-time event coordinator, a full-time maintenance worker, two part-time assistant event coordinators and numerous as-needed hourly positions, such as bartenders and housekeepers.
As with capital expenditures, the personnel additions are largely driven by the conference center.
Turning to maintenance spending, McDanel and Assistant City Manager Ryan Heiland, who is responsible for overall operations at the lake, are recommending $27,000 for equipment replacements, including a 50-year-old tractor, and $198,000 for other improvements, including rehabilitation of a half-dozen badly draining bunkers at the Sechrest 18 golf course.
Other proposed maintenance projects embrace $80,000 for demolition of the existing golf course clubhouse and silo, $10,000 for sod that will be used to create a new “events lawn,” $20,000 for parking lot curbs and $30,000 for park “monument signage” along Highway 136.
In other business during the meeting, McDanel announced that the city has two possible candidates interested in operating an independently managed restaurant at the conference center, and that he expects to make a presentation to the City Council with regard to selecting a restaurant services vendor in the near future.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Pictured is the vaulted roof of the modular banquet area inside the new conference center still under construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park. The 5,500-square-foot space is designed to accommodate receptions, banquets and other events attended by up to 500 people.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
City Manager Greg McDanel, right, and members of the Mozingo Lake Advisory Board stand in what will be a restaurant located on the lower level of the new Mozingo Lake Recreation Park conference center, which is scheduled for completion sometime around Thanksgiving.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Steel girders bridge what will soon be an exterior deck area at the new Mozingo Lake Recreation Park conference center and golf course clubhouse.
