An arena too far?
Scaled-down arena-lite proposal for Runnels Pool location still carries a $12 million price tag
ABOVE: Harold Runnels Swimming Complex Friday, September 26. .— © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover BELOW: Gallup Mayor Harry Mendoza speaks at a City Council work session on Tuesday evening about the proposed indoor arena. Because of the high costs of locating the arena at Red Rock Park, the mayor is now proposing to place the area where the Harold Runnels pool is located.— © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy RELATED STORY

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Kevin Killough
Staff writer

GALLUP — Mayor Harry Mendoza is moving ahead with his plans to build an indoor arena.

Originally, the plan was to build it at Red Rock Park, but at the beginning of the month, a feasibility study was completed that showed that the arena would cost $19 million, which was well outside Gallup’s financial possibilities.

“We can’t afford that. We have too many infrastructure needs,” the mayor said.

The mayor is not giving up on an indoor facility completely. It’s back to the drawing board, and a new plan is in the works to build a scaled-down version where Harold Runnels Pool is. At this early stage of the game, all estimates are basic guesses. But the mayor said the new facility will be approximately 60,000 square feet and probably cost taxpayers around $12 million to build. It would not be large enough for rodeos as he had planned.

He’s certain that investment will pay off in a very big way when new events come to the arena, which will be in use year round. That, in turn, will draw more people into Gallup and generate revenues through gross receipts taxes and lodgers tax, he said.

“Gallup is a tourist town ... If you had some kind of event every week, people would come here,” the mayor said.
Mendoza pointed out that 30,000 vehicles pass by Gallup every day along U.S. Interstate Highway 40. If the facility could even pull 1 percent of them off the interstate, the arena would pay off, he said.

In addition to the passing traffic, there is a population roughly the size of metropolitan Albuquerque within 100 miles of Gallup. Weekly events, Mendoza said, would draw in more of those people, who are now going to Albuquerque, Farmington, and Flagstaff rather than coming to Gallup. As an example, Mendoza said that the Gallup Wal-Mart has unusually high revenues for a town this small. It’s because the store acts as a draw for a larger population around Gallup, he said.

While Mendoza is quite certain the facility will work, he admits he has no objective data to back up his claims. It’s all theoretical. No market research has been done to determine if a demand for such a facility even exists.

Mendoza said that such a study would be expensive and unnecessary. He said that as long as the city hired a very good promoter, they could fill the place with enough events to make it work.

Besides being cheaper to build, the new proposed plan also has some other financial benefits. The city’s current public use facilities continue to be a large drain on the budget. The two pools alone cost nearly $500,000 every year to operate.
“I don’t know of any other city this size that keeps two major pools running,” Mendoza said.

He has been critical of the Rosebrough administration’s decisions in funding the Aquatic Center, which obligates the city for 20 percent of the operating costs in addition to a large chunk of the construction costs. The new proposed plan for the indoor arena will close Harold Runnels Pool, which will eliminate the deficit on that pool from the city’s budget.

Though, some have been critical of the city closing the pool just after it finished $400,000 in renovations. The money for that was put aside under the previous administration, Mendoza said, and the pool would require even more money for further renovations if the city were to keep it operational in the future. The 30-year-old pool needs much more work done. The new proposed indoor arena would save the city on all those renovations.

“It would save more than that,” Mendoza said.

The city would also save on the yearly $200,000 deficit is spends to keep the Harold Runnels Pool operating, and its closure would force pool users over to the Aquatic Center, reducing its annual deficit.

The mayor also said that the indoor arena would do more than just provide space for events. It would also have other community benefits.

“The schools don’t have any place for the kids to train and practice in the winter,” Mendoza said.

It all sounds good on paper, but without further market research, the possibility exists that the arena could end up the same way as Gallup’s other public use facilities. With the exception to the Fitness Center, which manages to almost break even, the city pays out more than $1 million for Red Rock Park, the two pools, and the golf course. Even Red Rock Park, with all its potential, has not managed to come even close to breaking even after all these years. Will it work this time? Mendoza is confident.

“It’ll work,” he said.