Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Executive Summary
This report constitutes the recommendations for Sportspark improvements based on the
discussions between Mary Cunneen and the Cornell Tech student team, as well as objective
data gathered by a community-wide survey. The goal is to take advantage of the planned
resources for renovation to make Sportspark more available, accessible, and relevant to the
community, as well as drive conversion from daily passes to memberships. To this end, we
recommend a use case for the upper floor, elucidation of Sportspark information, opening
enabling facility amenities outside of class-hours, the creation of additional activities, and other
suggestions as determined by the information we collected.
Survey Description
In order to ensure that we had input from the community, our team created a survey about
Sportspark using Google Forms. This survey was then distributed it to the Roosevelt Island
residents via multiple announcements on the Advisory notification service, current Sportspark
Members, as well as an email to the Cornell student body. The questions were designed to
learn more about community members’ interest in the current and potential offerings of the
facility, as well as any issues they would like resolved. We received 281 responses, and the
Google Forms results view has an excellent representation of the quantitative data. We
included the link to this page and a summary of the “Additional Comments” section in Appendix
A.
It is important to note that while the Cornell student body were invited to take part in this
survey, less than 20% of responses were from Cornell Tech and Cornell Medical School
students. We hope this shows that the survey is representative of the broader Roosevelt Island
community.
Demographics
The following charts show the demographics of the survey respondents.
Age
Gender
Number of Children
Ages of Children
Increasing Amenity Availability
Non-Scheduled Activities
The qualitative interviews we conducted revealed that the lack of non-scheduled activities is a
cause of some discontent with the facilities. According to our survey, 74% of people want
access to the multipurpose room during all open hours, and 34% of people want access to the
basketball courts during all open hours. The renovation of the upper floor provides an
opportunity to move some of the scheduled classes upstairs, and make some of the lower floor
accessible during all open hours. The upstairs space has more natural light than the lower floor
and about as much space, making it perfect for Yoga and Zumba classes. This leaves the multi-
purpose room available for use as a fitness center, providing enough space for more equipment
and more members than the current fitness center, which could then be put to use in other
ways. One use for the current fitness room could be to move some of the files out of the squash
court and make that accessible, and another would be as a recreation room.
Membership Options
Dry/Wet Memberships
Currently, there are limited dry-land activities that would be available under a dry membership,
but there is still interest in one nonetheless. According to the survey, roughly 20% of
respondents were interested in a dry-land-only membership, and over half of respondents are
interested in a combined dry/wet membership. In this membership structure, the pool would
be covered under a Wet membership, and everything else would be covered under a Dry
membership. The appeal of this would depend highly on what dry-land activities are made
available for members, which could include use of basketball courts, free entry to classes, use
of the lounge space, and use of the ping-pong/yoga space.
Single-Entrance Access
If the pool-side entrance remains open and the opposite entrance becomes exit-only, it would
be easier to verify memberships for people using the facilities. Access to the pool-side and dry-
side of the facilities can be managed from the pool-side entrance, which can be made even
easier by using the POS App discussed below.
Membership Durations
According to the survey, few people are interested in a 12-month membership option, roughly
21% of people are interested in 6-month memberships, and roughly 27% of people are
interested in 1-month memberships. Introducing a monthly membership option at a slightly
higher price could help introduce people to the facilities with a smaller up-front commitment.
This could help drive conversion away from daily passes without the requirement of spending a
lot of money up-front. The downside, of course, is a less stable revenue stream, but it is worth
trying it out and tracking metrics (acquisition rate, retention rate, etc.) to determine its efficacy.
Maintenance
The survey we created was geared towards finding out what the community wants from the
Sportspark, and had very few questions regarding maintenance and operations. While we have
noticed some of the current issues relating to the maintenance of the facility in its current
state, we have met with RIRA and feel that they have thoroughly done an analysis in this
regard. They have done in-person audits and documented the issues found; after reviewing
their report, we believe it is comprehensive. That report was not generated by the Cornell Tech
student team, and has many more maintenance recommendations than this proposal. With
that said, our survey indicates that there is a lot of interest in repairs made to the lockers (87%),
showers (81%), and steam room (58%).
Closing Thoughts
The biggest current problems with Sportspark are unclear messaging to potential patrons, a
lack of “open-gym” activities, misalignment with the needs of some community members, and
maintenance concerns. Our goal for this proposal was to address those problems, and we
believe that the renovation provides a perfect opportunity to solve many of them. We hope
that Sportspark can benefit from some of the suggestions provided here, and that the survey
data collected can help guide future decisions that are out of scope of the topics discussed
herein.
Finally, we would like to thank the following people for helping us put this report together:
Appendix A
Link to Google Forms Survey Results:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1I2hlESS722uDp8Aq_qAUdxxbYRMIA5hI9MspqXntlEA/viewa
nalytics
Most commonly cited issues/suggestions from the Additional Comments section:
• The locker rooms need renovation, including:
o Fix the showers to have adjustable water temperature
o Add hooks to hang towels
o Fix toilet stall doors
o Showers should be sanitized regularly
o Soap dispensers should be filled
• The website needs to be updated to be more navigable and clearer to readers
• There should be a weight room with a trainer
• Extend open hours (6am-10pm)
• The water temperature in the pool is too cold
• Make a group-priced membership available
• Make the multipurpose room nicer with a softer floor
• Add more family activities
• Add more Yoga and Swimming lessons
• Increase awareness of the facility across RI
• Basketball Court should be mopped more frequently
• Add Tennis lessons
• Add Yoga-specific membership option
• Add Cardio equipment
• Add mirrors to multipurpose room
• Establish partnership with Cornell Tech
• Better AC in multipurpose room
• Reconsider swim-cap rule for younger children