Five Common Mistakes Made In Facility Planning
Community centers can be a great way to bring a town or city together and give children and parents alike a destination that is both safe and affordable for some family fun. However, when developing a community center, a great deal of facility planning comes into play, and mistakes can prove costly. In today’s post, Sports Facilities Advisory will look at five common facility planning mistakes.
1. Lack of Vision
When it comes to facility planning and development, vision is what starts the snowball rolling. You can have all of the talent and resources available, but without a proper vision, your community center is going to struggle to get off the ground. To truly be successful, you need a group of people committed to serving the community and looking for ways that your community center can improve your town.
2. Lack of Organization
While vision is arguably the most important factor for facility planning, it doesn’t do any good without proper organization. This is true on all fronts, from budgeting to developing and eventually to the actual building of your community center. Without proper organization, there will be in-house disputes that can be both detrimental to the vision and time-consuming. For your center to succeed, you need to be able to cross your T’s and dot your I’s. If you aren’t able to do that, this process will be a long one.
3. Lack of Research
Most people don’t think that research is crucial to the development of a community center, but without proper research, you won’t be able to know what your town is looking for and what they want you to provide them. Understanding the needs and desires of your community is a crucial step in developing the right facility and will also be vital in keeping it functioning at a high level for years to come. You should know your community inside and out before you even think about starting to build.
4. Lack of a Functioning Budget
At the end of the day, someone has to be able to approve purchases, and that becomes very murky without a proper budget. As a facility planning team, you need to know what your limits are and what you are allowed to spend money on. A budget will not only influence how you spend money, but it will also influence what resources you value in the development of your facility.
5. Lack of Manpower
One problem that is common with projects like these is burnout. Staffs invest months and years into these types of projects and they often do so without the proper help. If you want your facility to function well, being well-staffed will be crucial. If you fail to staff your team well enough, not only will you begin to lose energy, but you will also see things begin to fall through the cracks.
Contact SFA For Facility Planning Consultation
Facility planning can be tricky, and there are a lot of variables that can at times be difficult to manage. At SFA, we want to help make sure that those variables aren’t going unnoticed. For further facility planning consultation, give us a call today at (727) 474-3845 or contact us online for more details.