Is Lansing seriously considering sale of Lansing Center, ballpark and golf course?
LANSING — City Council members are expected to vote Monday on whether to start the process of selling the city's only municipal golf course, convention center and minor league baseball stadium.
It will likely fail, said Peter Spadafore, the council member who is proposing the resolution. He won't vote for it.
Spadafore said he made the proposal because council members have spent years complaining about the city's funding of the Lansing Entertainment and Public Facilities Authority, the management company hired by the city to operate Groesbeck Golf Course, the Lansing Center and the Lansing Lugnuts' Jackson Field.
In an interview Friday, Spadafore said the city funds the three programs because they help to drive tourism, business and investment in Lansing. Budget documents show a 2023-2024 "operating subsidy" total of about $2 million for the properties.
The city provided about $1.3 million to the Lansing Center this year; $612,381 to Jackson Field; and $96,383 to Groesbeck. For the upcoming year's $165.1 million general fund budget that council will vote on Monday, the subsidies amount to about $1.5 million, with $78,000 of that for the golf course.
"I also do not accept the premise that this is a subsidy, because we run programs across the city that are good for our community like our community centers and pools and parks programs," Spadafore said. "We don't make money on those but that's what a government does."
Other city officials, including Mayor Andy Schor, Council President Jeremy Garza, and Councilmember Ryan Kost, also are opposed to selling the well-known city properties.
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Schor said, in a statement, that he is firmly opposed to selling any of these three city assets.
"They are a valuable part of providing a vibrant and thriving community, bringing in residents and visitors from across the state," he said. "I'm proud that the City of Lansing can offer incredible, diverse amenities like the Groesbeck Golf Course. And I am happy that the amenities we have added over the last few years have increased the sustainability of this course."
LEPFA did not respond to the State Journal's requests for comment. Scott Keith, the longtime director of LEPFA resigned earlier this year and said at the time that a city proposal to reduce LEPFA’s city funding by $700,000 had nothing to do with his decision to resign. The drop, he said, was a return to pre-pandemic levels of less reliance on the city.
Kost, a council member who has criticized the city payments for the three properties, said LEPFA's management team needs to improve and stop asking for so much money from the city.
He doesn't think selling the assets is the right move but he would like to city to explore other options like additional revenue sources or different management.
Garza said, in a phone message, that he too would be opposed to any sale but is open to discussions about ways to improve LEPFA.
At an early May council meeting, Spadafore, in apparent frustration, asked if the council would just look into selling the assets instead of complaining about the city's funding of LEPFA every year.
Spadafore said that while his resolution suggests the sell-it solution, if council members don't support the sale, there could be support for other avenues like considering a bidding process for a new management team or bringing the management back under the city's umbrella.
The City Council is in the final stages of budget negotiations. The city's budget needs to be approved by council by the third Monday of May each year, meaning a vote must happen on Monday.
The city's budget - both the mayor's version and the version that will ultimately be approved by city council - will be balanced and will not dip into its reserves, council members said.
Kost said he believes there won't be support for selling the assets, in part because they're difficult to sell. He said the golf course in particular is a city gem and should be kept available for residents to play at cheaper rates than local non-municipal courses.
He also supports repairing the facilities while the city is bringing in fairly good revenues and experiencing a good business climate. If the three assets can't be close to revenue-neutral during these good economic times, they are more likely to be sold by the city in future bad times, he said
City Attorney Greg Venker, in a May 15 memo to council members, highlights another complication for the Lansing Center: Its bonds are based on being a non-profit organization and if an organization without a similar tax exemption buys the building, the city could have to pay the tax differences as part of a sale.
The city's golf course is considered park land and therefore would require a vote by residents to approve a sale, which happened years ago with the voter-endorsed sales of the city's former Waverly and Red Cedar golf courses.
The ballfield is under contract with Major League Baseball through 2038, and any sale would need the league's cooperation and approval, according to the memo by the city attorney.
The council meets for a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 124 W. Michigan Ave., and a full council meeting at 7 p.m.
Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Is Lansing seriously considering sale of Lansing Center, ballpark and golf course?
