BALTIMORE CITY RECREATION AND PARKS CONCESSIONS
Project: BALTIMORE CITY RECREATION AND PARKS CONCESSIONS
Sponsor: Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation
IPS Staff: Marsha R. B. Schachtel and Shreya Pillai
Purpose and Approach
Baltimore City is interested in enriching the experience of recreation and parks facility patrons and strengthening the neighborhoods in which they are located, while minimizing its financial exposure. Other important considerations include equity and Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises. IPS has been asked to identify one or two opportunities for privately-operated concessions in Baltimore City Recreation and Parks facilities and, based on success elsewhere, to develop insights into how these opportunities might be realized.
Baltimore City is providing information about current utilization of recreation and parks facilities, in-cluding parks, recreation centers, pools, and special facilities such as golf courses and ice skating rinks. The team has met with current and former recreation and parks employees to brainstorm opportunities that may have been considered in the past. It is preparing to examine several options in various parts of the city by looking more closely at the utilization of the facility, e.g., seasonality; time of day; identify-ing potential market gaps or complementarities in the area of the park or facility that a concessionaire might fill; and seeking examples from other cities (or Maryland counties) that have similar demograph-ics and utilization, including the experience of vendors.
The scope of work has been revised this year and includes an assessment of current operations at spe-cial facilities (completed by a complementary consultant), analysis of park area demographics and recreation and parks-provided data on usage for two major parks and one neighborhood park, sugges-tion of vending opportunities based on demographics, and presentation of operating business model options.
Results and Publications
Forthcoming.
