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City may increase Georgia Mountains Center rental fees
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Brian Massey, set up supervisor at the Georgia Mountains Center, works on clearing the arena after an event over the weekend. There is a proposal to raise rental fees for events at the center. - photo by Tom Reed

The cheapest game in town may get a little more expensive.

Gainesville’s Georgia Mountains Center may go up on its rental rates in the coming days — and continue to do so each year — if the City Council approves a measure to adjust the convention center’s rates annually with the Consumer Price Index.

Center director Carol Moore said the Georgia Mountains Center needs the annual rate increase to keep up with rising operating costs.

Moore proposed raising the center’s rental rates annually no higher than the annual average increase in the Consumer Price Index the previous calendar year.

“That way, it seems to be fair,” Moore said. “That’s what the inflation is telling us what it needs to be and it’s fair and equitable to all.”

Moore proposed raising the rates after comparing the center’s rates with local convention centers like the Classic Center in Athens, the Dalton Convention and Trade Center and the James H. Rainwater Conference Center in Valdosta.

The Grand Hall at the Valdosta convention center is nearly half the size of the Georgia Mountains Center arena, but rental rates are nearly the same for both venues, according to a facility rental rate comparison Moore prepared.

The proposal for the fee increase comes at a time when city officials are trying to make the city’s subsidiary agencies like the Georgia Mountains Center and the city’s solid waste division, less reliant on the city’s general fund. The general fund, fed mostly with sales and property tax revenues, supports basic city functions like police and fire service.

In the coming fiscal year, which begins Wednesday, the Georgia Mountains Center will receive $139,319 from the general fund — a $37,500 reduction from the original fiscal year 2009 budget.

The center’s major source of revenue — charges for sales and services — also suffered with the economy.

The center’s arena is usually rented every Saturday, thanks mostly to “quinceañeras” or “Sweet 15” parties, Moore said. But the center’s theater was nearly $11,000 short in sales revenues with one month left in the fiscal year on May 31.

Meeting rooms were nearly $30,000 under budgeted revenues at the same time last month. Moore attributes a portion of that lost revenue to the construction of the new parking deck outside the center. During the month construction crews were demolishing the center’s old parking deck, regular customers at the center’s meeting rooms were sent to the Gainesville Civic Center.

“We lost that whole month’s revenue,” Moore said.

But the construction also had an effect on prospective business, she said.

“A lot of people get scared when they hear ‘construction,’” Moore said.

The proposed increases are minimal, Moore said. If approved by the City Council as Moore proposed them, the rental rate for the center’s arena would increase from $1,100 to $1,200.

Renting the arena’s lobby would cost $135 instead of $125.

“The increase is so minimal it’s not going to give us a great leap in revenue, either,” Moore said. “...We’ll never be where we need to be with our rental rates,” Moore said.