It’s time to park event center idea

When you see any of the fine, community-minded people currently advocating construction of a Central Park venue for events, be sure to thank them for coming forward with a positive idea — something that far too few people are willing to do these days.

But, with the same positive community spirit that they are modeling, gently and politely remind them that there may be some problems with the idea they are presenting. Maybe even volunteer to help them address one or more of the problems.

Two are obvious. Central Park has very little parking. It also seems to be getting less and less park-like with more and more structures, resulting in less and less of the grass, trees, and nature that long have been the park’s hallmarks.

A third problem is less obvious but probably more important. Does Marion actually need another venue, or does it simply need to better manage the venues it already has?

Seemingly every time some new facility is proposed, its value as an event venue is touted. We heard it when the Sports and Aquatics Center and Performing Arts Center were built. We heard it more recently when the new concession stand and locker rooms near the stadium were proposed.

All were supposed to serve not just the schools but also the community as a whole, providing places for meetings, events, and receptions. Yet, in practical terms, most of these larger venues now seem restricted. Scenery, equipment, or other things that the schools have stored in them or that occasionally are being worked on in them seem to take precedence over the type of events taxpayers may have been thinking of when they approved borrowing to build them.

Marion’s Community Center — the former city building auditorium and basement — sit empty much of the time. Some uses of the ballroom would seem better suited to an athletic facility. The basement, with its elaborate dais and sound system for elected officials, seems to be used only for biweekly government meetings, which used to be conducted far less formally in an upstairs room.

Marion Senior Center can house fairly large events, as well, but seldom is used for anything other than noon lunches on weekdays. Most churches in town have fellowship halls. St. Mark Activity Center in particular used to be the primary event venue in town but now seems used only for church purposes.

Events used to be staged in Marion Elementary’s multi-purpose room. Some even were staged in the middle and high school lunchroom. There are smaller, and more frequently used, venues like the meeting room at Marion City Library — not to mention the very large facility right outside town at Marion County Lake Hall.

Some of the venues, like the city building basement, may need some repairs to become as vital as they once were, but the same could be said for the basketball courts that the proposed Central Park event venue would replace.

Doesn’t it make sense to look first at what we already have before seeking to build something new? Or is this going to be another proposal like the one for building a movie theater adjacent to the town ball diamonds? It, too, was going to offer space for all manner of events.

Step One in the process that our community-spirited neighbors have meritoriously proposed ought to be taking a thorough inventory of venue spaces currently available and what might need to be done — either with repairs or fewer restrictions on general use — to let them provide what a new event center would provide.

We aren’t living in “Field of Dreams.” If we build it, no one might come. For Marion to attract regional meetings, as some have claimed a new venue in the park would do, the first thing an organizer would look at is the availability of restaurants and lodging, and we don’t have a surplus of either.

Think back to the days when our ball diamonds attracted all sorts of regional tournaments. It wasn’t just the lack of local sponsors, willing to organize such things, that caused tournament business to peter out. Having Pizza Hut nearby made Marion a popular destination. Not having Pizza Hut helped encourage potential visitors to look elsewhere.

This isn’t a project that will cost taxpayers nothing. Most grants have at least some local share, and even projects paid for entirely by donations take a toll. Donations could go to other things, instead.

Marion already is staring down its ledger sheets at a budgetary crisis. Utility costs, which hit lower-income residents hardest, already are higher than they are in many other places. Property taxes are nearly twice what they are in neighboring towns like Hillsboro. And Marion faces a very real possibility of losing a major lawsuit that, even if we at the paper would forgo damages, still would require more than insurance will cover to pay the claims of others involved.

Now is not a time to dream big and spend big. It’s a time to tighten belts and see how we can make do with what we have. All the energy going into planning a new building could instead go into figuring out how to improve and get greater use out of facilities we’ve already paid for.

— Eric Meyer