While Naperville Park District program participation is down about 25% from what it was in 2019, one bright spot is Centennial Beach, which isaveraging about 1,500 visitors a day, the district’s recreation director said.
The district has sold about 6,800 individual day passes, which 600 more than it had at this time two years ago, Brad Wilson said at last week’s Naperville Park Board meeting.
Also doing well are the district’s camp programs, with a surge in interest for such things as day and athletic camps, Wilson said.
“Both (Centennial Beach and camp programs) have actually already exceeded the numbers that we had seen the entire summer of 2019,” he said. “There’s certainly very high demand and families looking to get their kids involved in activities.”
Neither could be offered in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which also resulted in the closure of many district facilities and the cancellation of most indoor programs.
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Despite the renewed interest in outdoor activities, signups for other programs are 74% of what what they had been at this time in 2019, Wilson said.
More than 30,000 people signed up for winter, spring, and summer programs, but the numbers should start to climb since the state lifted pandemic restricting room capacity and requiring social distancing and mask usage earlier this month, he said.
With those things in place, “it’s really not a surprise” that active adult and senior program registrations should be down, Wilson said.
The Alfred Rubin Riverwalk Community Center, 305 Jackson Ave., reopened this month and is about 70% of where it had been in 2019, he said.
With more people learning that programming is back and the center open for drop-in visits, the numbers will definitely grow as the summer progresses, Wilson said.
The other thing affecting the district’s overall numbers are the special events that had to be canceled earlier this year, he said. For example, Magical Starlight Theatre did not perform in January.
In other news, the park board is debating whether it should be holding more meetings the City Council chambers in the Naperville Municipal Center.
Currently, board meetings are held at the Fort Hill Activity Center on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month.
Commissioners generally supported the idea of doing a split in which half would be at Fort Hill and half in the council chambers.
Using the municipal center location allows them to a have a more formal meeting location and is easier to set up than Fort Hill.
If the move is made, NCTV17, the city’s nonprofit television station, would charge the park district $100 a month to livestream and record the meetings in the council chambers, officials said.