Penfield Pavilion Gets Its Closeup Friday Afternoon

Christopher DeWitt, a member of the town's Board of Finance, said he's heard a lot of information about Penfield Pavilion, which the town wants to demolish and rebuild at a cost of $3.28 million.

But listening to comments about Penfield Pavilion from a conference room on Kings Highway East can't compare to seeing its condition first-hand, and DeWitt and eight other Board of Finance members will get that chance Friday afternoon.

"For me, personally, we've heard from the building committee many times this is a 100-year-plus-old building that needs all this work. I think it will be interesting and informative to see how bad the building really is," DeWitt said Thursday evening.

Kevin Kiley, also a Board of Finance member, said, "You learn more by walking through a building with building experts, maintenance experts, than you do listening to presentations at meetings."

"Knowing more is always a good thing," Kiley said.

The Board of Finance is the second of three town boards that need to approve the $3.28 million funding request to demolish and rebuild the center and westerly sections of the pavilion before construction can begin. The Board of Selectmen approved the funding request on a 3-0 vote Aug. 18, and the finance board's vote is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Education Center, 501 Kings Highway East. If approved Tuesday night, the funding request will head to a final vote at the Representative Town Meeting at 8 p.m., Sept. 27 in the Education Center.

Town Fiscal Officer Paul Hiller said Friday's Board of Finance meeting also will include a trip to the Country Club of Fairfield, which recently built a pavilion at roughly the same cost. Hiller said he doubted Friday's meeting will be called off due to the storm that's expected to hit town Friday afternoon and evening.

DeWitt said he hasn't made up his mind about the town's plan to rebuild the 323 Fairfield Beach Road pavilion and is most interested in the building committee's anticipated payback on the new structure. "It's going to be a really long meeting because I think we're going to have a lot of questions for the building committee, and I personally want to see the return on investment," he said. "I think all of these decisions have to be a business case and have a business case always done with it."

Gerald Lombardo, director of the town's Parks and Recreation Department, presented a financial analysis to the selectmen on Aug. 18 which projected that a new Penfield Pavilion would generate $153,495 a year, with average annual debt service on bonding $3.28 million over 20 years at $215,000.

But Lombardo's analysis assumed the new pavilion would be available for rental two times a day from April 1 through June 30, while First Selectman Ken Flatto, worried the pavilion would turn into a catering hall at the height of beach season, wanted the rentals scaled back to once a day from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day.

The town's Parks and Recreation Commission approved Flatto's request the night of Aug. 18, and that caused Lombardo's projected yearly revenue from rentals to drop to $145,608.

Lombardo's analysis assumes the new pavilion will be rented an average of 28 percent of the time it's available and assumes a peak booking rate of 80 percent on weekend evenings in July and August, with a 60 percent booking rate on weekday evenings in July and August. He figures the pavilion will only be booked 5 percent of the time on weekdays from November through March and 25 percent of the time on weekend evenings from November through March.

Penfield Pavilion now rents to residents for $500 for a four-hour block of time, and that will increase to a peak of $900 on weekend evenings from April 1 through Oct. 30. The lowest available charge, at $600, is for weekday day rentals from November through March.

Rental income from Penfield Pavilion totaled only $14,050 in fiscal year 2009-10, according to Lombardo's analysis.

Kiley said he was more concerned about the condition of the pavilion and whether it needs to be replaced. "With what I know today, I put far less importance on potential revenue projections than improving an asset of the town and constructing a safe facility for our residents," he said. "The building's in bad shape. I was down there a couple of weeks ago."

Town Public Works Director Richard White doubts Penfield Pavilion will survive the next significant storm, and Selectman James Walsh said Aug. 18 that the structure is partially held up by steel cables.

But the part of the pavilion that White is most concerned about - the foundation - will be difficult for Board of Finance members to see on their tour Friday afternoon.

The town is only planning to demolish and rebuild the center and westerly sections of the pavilion because the easterly wing was demolished and rebuilt in 2008 at a cost of $1.5 million, which was partially offset by a $400,000 state grant. The town has only a $200,000 state grant for the rest of the project.

Kiley agreed with DeWitt's belief that next Tuesday's meeting will be a long one. "I think it's going to be a very challenging decision for us," he said.