Agenda - 10-17-1995 - VI-B2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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i 2 1995 NACO ACHIEVEMENT AWARD APPLICATION ORANGE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA TRIANGLE SPORTSPLE$ FINANCING The program nominated for this 1995 NACo Achievement Award is the financing of the Triangle SportsPlex in Hillsborough, North Carolina. This 82,000 square foot recreational facility has just been constructed to provide Orange County citizens with a first rate venue for ice sports, swimming, and general fitness activities. This facility is unique in Orange County and surrounding jurisdictions in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. It was made possible because of an innovative, infrequently used capital financing mechanism, without which the project would not have been undertaken. The SportsPlex, which houses a regulation 2001x85 ' ice rink, two 25 meter swimming pools (competition and recreational) , children's pool, daycare center, fitness center, multipurpose activity area, restaurant, pro shops, arcade, and meeting space, opens for business in early April 1995. Since the mid-1980x, Orange County had been interested in enhancing the recreational opportunities available to its citizens, especially young people, in the central and northern portions of the county. The County had no legal obligation to act on this matter, but there was particular interest in providing an indoor, year-round public swimming pool in central Orange County. A number of indoor and outdoor public pools were available in the Chapel Hill area, in the southern part of the county, but there had been no such facility immediately accessible to northern and central residents. County recreation department staff had relied on arrangements with private home owners, motels, and church camps to make pools available in the summer for small swimming classes. An indoor pool was estimated to cost $3.5 million. Given the magnitude of this project, the county was unable to make short term arrangements to finance and construct the desired pool facility. At the same time, representatives of the small but successful non-profit Triangle Youth Hockey Association (TYHA) , operating in an antiquated ice rink in Hillsborough, the County seat, were interested in constructing a new ice rink. Because such a project was far beyond their financial capacity to undertake, they approached the County about the possibility of pursuing a joint ice rink-swimming pool project. During the latter part of 1993 and the first part of 1994, Orange County officials worked with TYHA and a financial placement agent to market $10.2 million in tax-exempt bonds, and $425,000 in taxable revenue bonds, to construct an ice rink-swimming pool complex. These bonds were issued by the Orange County Community Activity Corporation (OCCAC) , a non-profit organization created by TYHA and Orange County to oversee the development and operation of the Triangle SportsPlex facility. OCCAC was empowered to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds under the provisions of Internal Revenue Service Ruling 63-20, which permits a non-profit, under certain conditions, to finance construction of a public facility through tax-exempt instruments.