The Conway Community Center on St. Paul’s East Side is in line for a removable outdoor sports dome and at least $8 million to $10 million in field and building improvements over the next 15 years.

It’s a heavy commitment on behalf of the nonprofit Sanneh Foundation that runs it.

And it’s quite a turnaround for a community recreation center on the brink of closing seven years ago. The foundation was started by former World Cup soccer player-turned-philanthropist Tony Sanneh.

“He serves East Side kids. It’s giving East Side kids the kind of facilities that suburban communities have,” said St. Paul City Council member Jane Prince, noting high poverty rates in the neighborhood around the Conway Community Center and the Sun Ray Library. “The plan is a really good one.”

THE TRADE-OFF

If there’s a trade-off, residents say it’s this: the soccer-focused Sanneh Foundation will receive a 15-year lease extension from the city, cementing them as the primary tenant at what had been a general-purpose neighborhood space.

It’s a trade-off that’s seen in a handful of other rec centers around the city that have been paired up with nonprofit managers, drawing enthusiasm from die-hard sports fans and other corners. Some residents who grew up with the more traditional, city-driven rec center model remain skeptical.

“Some are great matches,” said Diane Graham-Raff, a longtime coordinator for elder care and block nurse services. “Some feel like giving away community space to a select group that only serve their members.”

Sanneh said the decision to pursue a sports dome and upgrade the Conway Community Center gym grew out of listening sessions held five years ago with the surrounding neighborhood, and outdoor field work would be underway by now but for the lease hold-up.

Without a firm signal that the nonprofit will be in the facility long-term, donors remain skittish, he said. He had once sought a 30-year lease.

“I applaud the city, when there’s budget cuts, to find these (partner) organizations,” Sanneh said. “We look at ourselves as part of the St. Paul Parks and Rec network. And (Conway) is still their property. We are investing in city property, because we feel that we would be able to run better programming with better facilities.”

SIX PARTNERINGS, HALF SOCCER

At Conway, the Sanneh Foundation has already spent $357,000 on interior building improvements. They include a new wood gym floor installed last year, a new gym divider, repainting the building’s interior walls, new flooring throughout the site, upgraded technology and renovations of the kitchen and restrooms.

“It’s a great organization, and I love that they used a rec center that was going to be gone,” said Lori Ann DeVille, a former city employee whose two 17-year-old daughters volunteer at the Conway Community Center.

In the post-recession climate of 2010, at a time of staff and budget cuts, St. Paul Parks and Recreation adopted a system plan aimed at focusing city staff in certain facilities while allowing nonprofits to run some of the lesser-used neighborhood centers.

If resources allow, the city may revisit the plan next year.

“Fewer buildings allowed for the redistribution of staff resources to the remaining centers to expand hours of operation and increase the quantity and quality of programming and activities,” said Clare Cloyd, a Parks and Rec spokeswoman, in an email.

RESULTS VARIED

The results have varied, with some relationships fizzling after a few years and others enduring.

In 2014, for instance, Minneapolis-based Leonardo’s Basement — a nonprofit that facilitates tinkering in everything from Lego robotics to car repair — left the Griggs Recreation Center in a huff after publicly objecting to the city’s new performance measures and lease requirements, including a rent increase.

St. Paul is now home to 26 city-operated rec centers.

Since 2010, six additional centers have been partnered with nonprofit agencies at the helm, and half of those are soccer-themed.

They include Conway (Sanneh), Desnoyer (KidsPark hourly child care), Dunning (ArtsUs), Eastview (St. Paul Urban Tennis), Orchard (BlackHawks Soccer) and South St. Anthony (Joy of the People Soccer Club).

Under even older arrangements, several sites follow more of a hybrid model. For instance, the Hallie Q. Brown Center is a nonprofit within the Martin Luther King Center, which is still operated by Parks and Rec staff.

Neighborhood House, a nonprofit dating to the late 1890s, runs the Wellstone Center, a community space that opened in 2006 at the same site as the city’s El Rio Vista Recreation Center on Robie Street, which also draws city staff.

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In 2012, when neighborhood residents learned that the city would lease the Conway Community Center to the Sanneh Foundation as a cost-cutting measure, some residents expressed outrage.

Members of the area’s District 1 Community Council said at the time that they felt blindsided by the arrangement, which they criticized as privatization of a public resource.

Much of that criticism has died down in light of the Sanneh Foundation’s activities, which include homework help, soccer camps and some 38,000 community meals annually, including warm dinners seven days a week.

Said Sanneh, “Ninety percent of the programs we run here are free. Throughout the day, there’s open gym. Right now, there’s 150 football players that use the football fields. We started a girls volleyball program.”

In addition, the Sanneh Foundation has a record of attracting donors. Best Buy and Comcast are working with the foundation on a youth computer lab.

Imprint Engine, a brand-promotion company in St. Louis Park, recently launched a new initiative to donate overstock and unused promotional items like notebooks, backpacks and water bottles to nonprofits. The company is starting by giving 70,000 items to the foundation.

Nevertheless, members of the District 1 Community Council have quietly raised a few concerns.

Some feel that the foundation — which sends tutors throughout the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools, and sends coaches as far Haiti — could do more outreach in the immediate neighborhood around the Sun Ray Library.

And many residents remain squeamish over the general prospect of nonprofits running public rec centers with a more targeted focus, such as a particular sport or discipline, rather than a general community outlook.

In a written statement, Betsy Mowry-Voss, executive director of the District 1 Community Council, said:

“I am speaking from hearing back from parents and kids who have used the space. This is what I’ve been told: programming and activity at the recreation center is disorganized and inconsistent. There aren’t enough structured day-to-day activities for youth outside of open gym. … It’s possible that the expansion will lend itself to increased structure and more positive behavior; we hope to see that.

“We want them to succeed. We want good community partnerships. … Long-term, our hope is that they will continue to find ways to authentically engage with our community.”

Sanneh said that once the 15-year lease is in place, he expects to receive a $4.5 million grant from the state for the renovation of the athletic fields at Conway Community Center. As part of city council action last month, the city accepted $60,000 from the foundation to fund pre-design work.

Future plans include a fenced-in artificial turf sports field, field lighting and a removable sports dome on one of the soccer fields, as well as a small new building adjoining it that would offer classroom and community meeting space.

The lease requires the foundation to pay the city at least $7,500 annually for field maintenance, and $5,000 or more for building upkeep.

ONLY GAME IN TOWN?

“Organizations like that have more capacity to conjure up the funds, to provide staffing and support for the community,” said Paul Shanafelt, a nonprofit administrator and Dayton’s Bluff resident.

Shanafelt acknowledged, however, that the community served by Sanneh stretches farther than the Conway neighborhood, or even the East Side.

Shanafelt said he worked closely with the Sanneh Foundation to start a teen soccer program in Landfall and a mobile home park in Lake Elmo.

While nonprofit partnerings with rec centers have sometimes been met with resistance, proponents say they’re far better than closures.

Several rec centers closed even before the recession. When the economy sank, the East Side centers were particularly hard hit.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter made added funding for rec centers a priority in his 2019 budget, and Highwood Hills was reopened by the administration in April, 11 years after closing due to budget cuts.

The dilapidated rec center at Margaret Park was re-partnered in 2009 with Hmong Youth Education Services. After that relationship ended, it was torn down around 2013, making room for new green space.

In the spring of 2017, St. Paul Urban Tennis agreed to reopen the shuttered Eastview Rec Center, which had previously been home to Brunette Boxing and Twin Cities Barbell.

The month-to-month lease with the women’s boxing program — which did not maintain open-gym hours for the general public — ended in the fall of 2016.

“The partnership wasn’t serving the community’s needs,” said Mowry-Voss, director of the District 1 Community Council.

Under the supervision of the Urban Tennis program, which has a five-year lease, Eastview has since added open-gym hours on afternoons and weekends, as well as affordable community rental space.

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Midway Fund offers $840,000 in damage, rebuilding and relocation grants “We have evening programs that are non-tennis-related, just by working with different community groups, like Native American drumming, the East Side Heat basketball team, an Aztec drumming dance group and the Girl Scouts,” said Johnny Yang, Urban Tennis’ community outreach manager.

The mix has won over residents, as have the Urban Tennis staff.

“They’re a fabulous partner,” said Mowry-Voss, who lives in the area. “We love Johnny Yang.”