January 2015 - Parks & Recreation - 47

Amenities like this state-of-the-art waterpark
help attract spouses and children of oil workers
in Williston, encouraging families to stay together
and make homes in the boomtown.

project. Still, Krueger says, " Everyone was asking me, 'When are you
going to build a rec center?' "
Williston Parks and Recreation
District would not be a " poor park
district " - nor would Krueger be
a small-town parks director - for
long. When the oil (and dollars) started flowing in Williston, the District
began to reap the benefits of a new
one-cent sales tax, with half of the
revenue going to Park District operations and the other half used to fund
a new recreation center. Plans for
what would become arguably the nation's largest public recreation center
commenced.
The Williston Area Recreation
Center, which opened in March
2014, is an expansive, state-of-theart 250,000-square-foot complex that
cost more than $70 million to construct. With indoor basketball and
tennis courts, playgrounds, a waterpark, a running track, a golf simulator, plenty of fitness equipment and
space to roam, the recreation center
is what Krueger calls " a game changer for Williston. "
In this booming town, residents are
looking for stability and a chance to
revitalize and strengthen their community in the wake of great change.
The former quiet farming town had
little to offer new throngs of children
and families in the way of recreation
and entertainment, particularly in
North Dakota's very cold, very dark
winters. The new recreation center
offers a bit of that stability and a lot
of fun; it is a place for families to
hang out, a place for people to relax
and enjoy themselves, get some exercise and meet their new neighbors.
In the first six months of the Williston Area Recreation Center's existence, more than 13,000 individual
and family memberships were sold.
Daily visitation tops 16,000 people, and the center takes in about

Daily visitation at the
Williston Area Recreation
Center tops 16,000
people, and the center
takes in about $340,000
per day.

$340,000 per day. The local school
and hospital even bring prospective
new teachers, nurses and doctors by
for a tour of the rec center, using it as
a recruitment tool.
Still, the work for Krueger and the
Williston Parks and Recreation District has only just begun. Krueger
doesn't believe the oil boom will slow
for at least another decade. And all
of those babies born in Williston? " In
10 years, all of those kids will be in
our programs, " he says.
In addition to constructing the
Williston Area Recreation Center,
Krueger has been working to improve
playgrounds and add new restrooms
and roads to existing parks during the
past few years. He says that the District will acquire and develop 30 new
parks during the next five years. One

of his major goals is to continue to
improve and expand Williston's network of trails; he hopes to add 15 to
20 miles of mixed-use trails over the
next decade. And, Krueger says, Williston will need another recreation
center on the west side of town in the
next several years. " My job is to improve the quality of life in Williston, "
Krueger adds.
Parks Support Communities
If the projects in Kissimmee and Williston have a lesson for the rest of the
country, perhaps it is that investing
in parks and recreation makes good
sense under a range of economic
circumstances. Parks and recreation
facilities offer critical support to
communities, improving the quality
of life for residents while helping to
support the local economy by providing jobs, drawing new business and
increasing property values.
In the November 2014 elections,
voters across the country - from Arlington, Virginia, to Spokane, Washington - voted in support of park
construction and improvement projects. The public's appetite for such
projects is growing, but park and
recreation departments nationwide
must continue to build their case for
major public investments in parks.
Jessica Culverhouse is NRPA's Senior Manager
of Fundraising (jculverhouse@nrpa.org).

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Parks & Recreation

January 2015 - Parks & Recreation

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