THUNDER BAY — The City of Thunder Bay wants to find out how much money it might be able to earn by selling naming rights to various city-owned properties.
It's looking for a consultant to investigate naming rights opportunities for recreational facilities, parks, sports fields and courts, park assets, and possibly even for non-recreational properties such as administrative centres, meeting/multi-purpose rooms, and others.
Included in the list of facilities to be evaluated for revenue potential is the yet-to-be-built indoor turf complex.
Among the 32 existing facilities available for consideration are Fort William Stadium, Port Arthur Stadium, all seven arenas, all five indoor pools, nine community centres, the Baggage Building Arts Centre and Water Garden Pavilion at Prince Arthur's Landing, the botanical conservatory, the Westfort playfield, the clubhouses at Chapples and Strathcona golf courses, and the pavilion at Chippewa Park.
Callie Hemsworth, coordinator of planning, projects and development in the city's Recreation & Culture Division, said the study comes on the heels of council's adoption last year of a new sponsorship and naming rights policy.
"The [current] request for proposals is really exploratory. No big decisions are being made at this time, but it's going to help lay the groundwork to make a recommendation to council at a later date. So, if council decides they would like to sell the naming rights to a recreational facility, for example, or a park, then we'll have a pretty good sense of what the value of that naming right would be."
If Kenora is any example, there's considerable money to be made.
That city last year sold naming rights to the Kenora Recreation Centre, the Keewatin Memorial Arena, and the Whitecap Pavilion to private-sector companies for 10 to 15 years, generating $700,000 over the duration.
"It's likely that Thunder Bay would see much higher revenue than that . . . this is revenue that we would have never seen in the past," Hemsworth said in an interview Monday.
The successful bidder for the evaluation process will be asked to establish a benchmark through a review of what other similar-sized municipalities have been able to do.
The RFP also acknowledges the potential sensitivity surrounding the renaming of some facilities, as it stipulates the consultant must provide the "decision-making matrix used to prioritize assets for naming rights," including "level of risk to public/political debate."
Hemsworth said the advisability of retaining existing names in some cases will be one of many issues to be considered.
"It wouldn't just be a matter of looking at the revenues in terms of making the decision. It would be looking at the historical factors, the location, a number of different things that would need to be part of the decision in terms of how the naming might end up looking in the future."
The consultant is expected to provide a list of city assets deemed suitable for naming rights, along with a detailed financial impact for each asset and a recommended length of term.
Under the projected timeline, the consultant will present a report to council near the end of this year.
