The Regional Performance Centre for Sport (RPCS) planned for Caird Park will cost Dundee City Council hundreds of thousands of pounds per year to maintain.
Property and maintenance costs for the controversial facility, which has been mired by setbacks, spiralling costs and lengthy planning wrangles, will cost the public £360,000 per year.
Mike Galloway, executive director of city development, has said in a report these expenses will be met in the council’s revenue budget from 2019 onwards, with the centre not due to open to the public until autumn of that year at the earliest.
The centre is not expected to break even for the first three years and the council said it may need to plug the operational deficit by using £63,500 from the revenue budget. This is in addition to the £360,000 property and maintenance bill.
The centre had faced a potential annual tax bill of £750,000 following recommendations made to the Scottish Government in the Barclay review, but Finance Secretary Derek McKay announced the RPCS’s “exceptional circumstances” would make it exempt.
The projected overall cost of the centre totals almost £32.2 million, including allowances, rocketing from £12.5m since the initial go-ahead was given in August.
Labour leader Bailie Kevin Keenan said: “The costs for the Regional Performance Centre for Sport continue to grow and we just hope they can deliver this project — which we support — on budget and on time.”
A spokeswoman for the council said this was the first opportunity the £360,000 property and maintenance cost has been able to be made public.
She added that the cost will be covered in the city development and neighbourhood services’ budgets. Further to this, Leisure and Culture Dundee will receive the income generated from the centre.
