Money Growing: At the Edge of Water

There is a deficit of swimming pools in the capital. Pools are not accessible at convenient times and for all categories of Muscovites of pools, nor are modern equipped and specialized complexes (for example, for those or other kinds of sports or simply for entertainment). City authorities do not deny the lack of sports constructions and are not tired of developing programs for their construction.

Swimming pools are non-uniformly distributed in the city, and many constructions have simply become outdated. Most modern complexes are in fitness clubs, where you won't find the cost of membership for less than 10,000 rubles. According to international class, master of sports and trainer of underwater sports Oleg Ivanitsky, who has experience at various Moscow swimming pools, pools basically don't belong to the city, but to different departments. Therefore at the pools the first or second half of the day is allocated for visitors or employees of the department to which the pool belongs, or to students if it belongs to a high school, or young sportsmen if it belongs to a children's-youth sports school, etc.

At present there are 84 operating swimming pools in Moscow, 20 of which belong to general educational and children's-youth sports schools. At least 26 are considered departmental. There are pools in at least 60 fitness clubs in the capital.

Luzhniki, Olympiisky and Chaika have become joint-stock companies. Ivanitsky says that in the city there are practically no pools for separate kinds of water sports. So though it may be possible to find a place to simply swim for a while such a shallow pool will not be used by divers and special equipment is also required. So amateur sports clubs need to be based in sports centers, which will accept them - naturally, for a payment. The average rent of a pool in the capital costs 300 rubles per hour.

The regular customers of swimming pools come from almost all classes of society - from oligarchs and the like who come early in the morning and can be seen on the paths to the Marina Club, to schoolboys and housewives who love the open air pool at Chaika in the afternoon and on days off.

Decline and Revival

The majority of swimming pools in Moscow have always been departmental. Though in the USSR many complexes belonged to sports communities - RОСТО (Russian Defense Sports/technical Organization), CSKA, МGS VSFO Dinamo - but all the same were more accessible to the general public, rather than now with many of them located in fitness clubs. For example, the TsSK water polo swimming pool at 25a Leningradskoye shosse is now rented by the Marina Club fitness center. Or the "Trud" swimming pool at 14 Varshavskoye shosse, building 1, is now rented by Planeta Fitness. Swimming pools somehow need to survive, so they are rented out. During soviet times, perhaps only the Moskva open air pool, on which now stands the cathedral of Christ of the Savior, could be called public in the full sense of the word.

According to market participants, separately standing swimming pool complexes never have and never will be considered a profitable project. Just in Soviet time there was a developed and powerful system of public sports organizations which received state support. In the budget there were funds for both the construction, and the maintenance of physical training and health complexes. With the decline of the USSR came the decline of many kinds of sports, as many state support programs fell into decay. They don't speak in vain when they say that in Russia there are no modern sports bases for training, all hope now is pinned to Sochi.

Stagnation has been observed for longer than ten years, and in the meantime the capital's swimming pools became outdated and dilapidated. According to Ivanitsky, a depressing impression is often made by the locker rooms and showers with old equipment and an absence of modern ventilation. The water in many departmental pools has not been changed since soviet times, and the water is cleared by the outdated means of chlorine. All these shortcomings can be found, unfortunately, in Olympiisky, Chaika, MSTU (Moscow State Technical University n.a. N.E. Bauman), and Luzhniki.

However from the middle of the 1990s the Moscow authorities suddenly thought and began to set out one after another programs to restore existing pools and to increase the number of new ones (a decision about tax privileges for organizations which have swimming pools on their balance sheet, a program for the construction of universal sports constructions from quick building designs in Moscow, etc.). There was even Moscow Law No. 1069 dated November 23, 1999, "On the efficiency of the use of departmental sports buildings." In it officials wrote: "Checks that have been carried out show that the majority of departmental sports buildings are used inefficiently and are in an unsatisfactory condition and require repair and reconstruction work. A number of large sport centers located on the territories of markets, car parks and garages, have been reprofiled into stadiums and other sports centers, which contradicts the Moscow law dated June 26, 1996, No. 20 "On physical culture and sport."

The authors of the program have demanded departments to create for the population "appropriate conditions for physical training and sports," and from prefectures - to develop all or any kind of sport and to advertise them to the population.

In 2005, president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin approved the federal target program of the development of mass sports (governmental order of the Russian Federation dated January 11, 2006 No. 7 "On the federal target program: The development of physical training and sports in the Russian Federation for 2006-2015". There was much written about the program. More than 4,000 sports premises are to be constructed under it in the country, in particular at comprehensive schools and high schools. This year the president personally visited the innovative Moscow region of Kurkino. In particular, he visited the education center "School of Health," which is famous for its pool and hydrochloric cave for pupils with lung disease.

Pools and regulations have started to be built in every district, and even using budgetary funds but only after 2003 did Moscow Law No. 31 dated January 28 "On the General scheme of development and accommodation of objects of physical culture and sports in Moscow up to 2010" come into force.

According to the press service of the Central prefecture, since 2004 the Corall swimming pool and complexes on Kompozitorskaya and Zoologicheskaya streets have been built. The city complex program "Sports of Moscow - 2" for 2007-2009 provides financing in the sum of 72 million rubles (57 million rubles from the city budget and 13 million from non-budget sources and the remainder from the federal budget.)

The Era of Business

With the arrival in Russia of a market economy, swimming pools were by no means the first niche in which businessmen from the real estate market rushed to make money. Of course, If you don't count the sector of private residential buildings, which has its own separate market of companies that build and deliver equipment for swimming pools.

If we talk about large public separately standing swimming pools, developers are not enticed by such construction. In fact even Luzhniki, Olympiisky and Chaika have been transformed into sports complexes with accompanying services which can make real profit. And everyone who rents such buildings from Soviet times, tries to transform them into commercial premises as much as possible.

If we talk about new construction, investors and developers have concentrated their attention on multipurpose sports-entertainment complexes, including a pool. But for the sake of profitability such centers are filled with many other healthy and popular things: aqua parks, gyms, saunas, restaurants, beauty salons.

According to Vitaly Efimkin, president of Tashir management holding, to build separately standing swimming pools with a length of 50 meters for the general public is obviously an unprofitable business. Such a project would take 20 years to break even. It is naive to think that private companies will undertake such projects. It is the state that should find money for sports and public swimming pools. Sergei Tyurin, deputy general director of MosCityGroup agrees. A large project for a swimming pool complex that has, say, 2-3 pools for different kinds of sports would be unprofitable for a private investor. A territory of 1 hectare would be required and an enormous amount of engineering work would be required. It is difficult to precisely calculate the recovery of funds from the outlay of such premises. And there are no privileges for private investors who direct funds into swimming pools in the capital.

Just as unprofitable, considers Tyurin, are specialized pools for different kinds of water sports. The recoupment of funds in such a project even within the structure of an entertainment center raises doubts. Tyurin considers the demand for diving is not great enough to buy expensive equipment for a pool. "For divers at the water entertainment complex in the Citi business center we decided not to install a pipe, although to begin with we wanted to, as we would never make full returns on it," Tyurin admits.

New swimming pools from private investors will appear in Moscow most likely as an element of aqua parks or within the structure of huge shopping-entertainment complexes in retail parks and citi-parks outside the capital. Tashira has a similar project.

According to Efimkin, citi-parks always require a strong entertainment anchor and water sports and entertainment can serve this purpose. Tashira's provisional investments in a citi-park in Kaluga come close to $350 million, and the construction area measures 115 hectares. In Lipetsk $150 million is being spent on such a project. The average rate of return of projects with a trading format and an aqua park is about four years.

In the capital there are 2-3 not yet completed or not yet started to be built aqua parks: on Aminevskoye shosse, a complex near the Chaika pool, and a swimming pool within the structure of a fitness zone at the new Evropeisky shopping center near Kievsky station.

Tyurin says that MosCityGroup's entertainment project in Citi includes not only an aqua park, but a general multi-purpose water park. The center is generally directed at business class visitors, which is logical given that it is located in a business center. Entrance will be by membership cards and will cost no more than any other fitness center in the capital. The entertainment complex will include a fitness center with a 25-meter length and 20-25 meter width swimming pool and an aqua park. The aqua park will also have several swimming pools. It turns out, that it is two complexes in one building. The modern equipment and quality of water is an important theme for entertainment centers of such a level.

Tyurin assures that all the pools within the complex will operate to standards accepted worldwide. In particular, it will be forbidden to dive. The pool will be divided into zones for sprinters, for water polo, for aqua aerobics, etc. The water level will reach the sides - a particular measure for cleaning. Water will not be chlorinated of course, but ozonized, and swimming hats will be mandatory. The complex will be open 24 hours. The recoupment of the costs of the project should take no more than four years and preliminary investments in the project stand at $80-90 million.

In other words the trend at the beginning of the century became for multi-profile sports and entertainment centers. In general, the amalgamation of services in one complex is a worldwide fashion.

One of the current trends in Moscow is for pools to be located in fitness clubs. However, fitness operators prefer not to construct a building from scratch, but to rent one. The majority of experts acknowledge that a shortcoming of most of them is that the length of such pools is short and not longer than 25 meters (if the pool even has lanes).

The winners are those clubs which have rented the former departmental high-grade pools: World Class Romanovo, Planeta Fitness, Trud and Marina Club. In the eyes of Maxim Maruhlenko, chief of the department for development at Leon Building, a pool can be within the structure of fitness center and be profitable for the developer as it receives rent from the operator. So the construction of a swimming pool is possible under the initiative of a fitness center and pays for itself.

In an article in the Australian magazine Park and Recreation it has been written that "the core of the new movement in the new century is for the entrance onto the market of entertainments and improvingly-regenerative work from the point of view of business. This means comprehending the demands and motives of buyers, quickly and precisely fulfilling their demands, the presence of strict competition in realizing programs, constantly increasing the level of service and anticipating any changes in the mood of visitors. <...> Rule No. 1: As visitors of swimming pools spend more time outside the water, they want to be in pleasant conditions. The landscape and internal furniture are important for the appeal of the premises, which Walt Disney has excellently proved. Well-kept lawns, trees and flowers, shady canopies, beautiful wooden flooring, umbrellas and other small architectural forms, attractive structures and convenient locker rooms, sufficient beach appliances and equipment plus the presence of good quality snacks and drinks - all this makes a pleasant relaxed atmosphere. Wooden fencing near to the side of the pool allow visitors to lay on the grass, getting a tan or to in the shade. let them choose how best to spend their time.

In Will Harelson's opinion, analysts and consultants in the swimming pool business in Dallas, in the state of Texas, 95 percent of the population want only to visit pools which give the opportunity for entertainment. But, he says, some park services suffer from "paddling pool syndrome": "There is a huge number of businessmen in the recreation field who have torn away from the traditional image of a pool. They bravely create new public aqua centers saturated with water entertainment. Public approval of this new concept, is confirmed by the huge number of visitors and revenue figures. The foundation of these aqua attractions is universal: participation in entertainment for all ages.”