Text and Photos
By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Rental fees for the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion were finalized by the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Board on Tuesday, March 21.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday is considered the weekend. Renting the large room in the pavilion will be $500 per day on the weekend from 7 a.m. to midnight, while renting the large room and conference room will be $600. The conference room can not be rented out on its own over the weekend.

Weekdays are Monday through Thursday. The cost to rent the conference room for four hours on a weekday will be $150, or $250 all day. The large room will be $300 per day on the weekdays, while renting the large room and conference room will be $450.

The damage deposits are the same for all seven days of the week. They are $400 for the large room and conference room, $300 for the large room and $100 for the conference room.

The parks board was asked at their February meeting to think about rental fees for the pavilion so they could decide on them at Tuesday’s meeting.

CME Corp., Fort Wayne, is remodeling the pavilion for approximately $2.7 million with Zimmer Biomet Foundation having donated $2.5 million of the cost. The pavilion originally was built in 1935.

In the old pavilion, the rental was Monday through Thursday, $200 with a $100 damage deposit; and Friday through Sunday, $400 with a $300 damage deposit.

Board Vice President Larry Ladd had sent out to all the board members his suggestion on what the rental fees should be, which are the numbers the board approved Tuesday.

Ladd said he looked at other venues and with the quality of what the pavilion will be, “it’s going to be a top-rate facility. And when we look at other venues in the area, there’s some that go for $700 a day and even higher. So, I don’t think we want to cut ourselves short. We want to make it — like (Parks Superintendent) Larry (Plummer) said — affordable to our residents, but on the other hand we don’t want to cheapen ourselves either by the quality of the facility.”

Board member Jill Beehler said people were commenting online they hoped they would still be able to afford to rent the pavilion after the prices were set on it. “They were hoping that we came up with a fair price,” she said.

Michelle Boxell, board member, said the people online also wondered if the rental fees included maintenance and use of technology, as well as any assistance for the technology in the pavilion.

Ladd asked Plummer if, when a person rents the pavilion, all the technology will be available.

Plummer said yes. “It’s a state-of-the-art system that’s being put in there compared to what he had,” he said. “… This will be a touchscreen system that will have access to allow how much of a system is being used by a renter or the renter wants to use.”

The technology available to the renters is very simplified, Plummer said, and when a person rents the pavilion park staff will walk the renter through how to use the technology. “It’s going to be very simple,” he said.

The board discussed the cost of parks employees preparing the room for renters and then cleaning up afterward. Plummer said, depending on the event, employees could take anywhere from two to four hours to clean the pavilion after an event. Since most events are on the weekends, Maintenance Director Shaun Gardner said that’s also overtime for the staff.

“So, basically, it could cost $240 to clean up?” Councilwoman Diane Quance asked.

“A big event, yes,” Plummer said, on weekends. “… But I think if you look at the cleaning part of it, you look at the utilities, you look at everything else, we’re never going to really recuperate all of our costs down there without being — at some of these other venues, you know, $1,000 or $1,500 to rent.”

He said they want the public to use the facility, but they also need to set a fair price for people to be able to use it, but not be so cheap “that everyone can use it and abuse it.”

Besides the cleaning and upkeep costs, Plummer said the $2.7 million cost to renovate the pavilion, along with improvements around the facility, justify any increase in the rental fees.

Ladd asked if the renters would have access to the kitchen. Plummer said there’s three microwaves in there, but no stove, and it’s a “warming kitchen” or “caterer’s kitchen.” He said the reason there’s no “full-blown stove” is because if they put in a stove, it would require a hood system and that would have driven up the remodeling costs “astronomically.”

Ladd said, as a comparison to other venues, the rental fees he suggested for the pavilion are still a bargain. Boxell agreed, and board member Noemi Ponce said it’s also next to a nice park. Boxell made the motion to approve the rental fees, Ladd seconded it and the fees were unanimously approved.

The pavilion renovation is expected to be completed in August.

Earlier, Plummer gave the board an update on the pavilion renovation. He said progress was moving along, and they were finishing up the electrical, audiovisuals and other things in the walls. They’re ready to do the drywall. At the end of this week or early next week, Plummer said the workers are “preparing to put the metal on the lower part of it.” The signage is ordered through Graycraft Signs that will let people know it’s the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion.

He then clarified the seating capacity. The small conference will seat up to 40 people, while the large room will be at 224. The combined maximum will be 280, with a maximum of 35 round tables and eight chairs at each table.

Plummer also updated the board on the park offices and maintenance building at the corner of East Fort Wayne and Indiana streets. He said construction crews were working hard and he hoped staff would be moving in by the end of the month. Office furniture is scheduled to be delivered this week.

“It’s very exciting. We’ve been waiting for this for three years. We’re counting the days,” he said.

In part of his maintenance report, Gardner said they replaced several boards along the Beyer Farm Trail, along with “a lot” of boards on the lookout that had been vandalized and carved in over the years. “It built up over the years, and finally there was some profanity type of stuff going on, so we decided to go ahead and replace that with fresh boards,” he said.

On a last note, he said almost all of the parks employees have been CPR certified recently.

Recreation Director Stephanie Schaefer, as part of her report, said the biggest registration coming up is for the Mommy & Son Dance May 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. Registration is April 3-28 and 100 participants will be allowed to sign up for the dance at a cost of $20 per participant.

Plummer’s last item for the board was that his parks and recreation department started a new program called “Team Member of the Month.” “We’ve been to some leadership classes and this has came out of that,” he said. The award goes to an employee who has shown improvement to the quality of the team, has improved communication within the team and has shown skills to better the team.

Since they didn’t have one in January, Plummer said, two were handed out. Recipients were Adam Howard and Travis Thomas, “voted by their peers,” he said.

The award will continue all year.