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For several cities, the answer is clearly yes. Among them: Apple Valley, Chaska, Eagan and Maple <br />Grove, which are all making plans to upgrade their community centers or already doing it, with <br />price tags from $10 million to $116 million. <br />"It's a great symbol of what a community can be to have these spaces where people can be <br />comfortable and gather," said Chuck Stifter, Maple Grove's parks and recreation director. <br />Other communities have made different calculations after crunching the numbers for long-term <br />operational costs. <br />After a 2018 study found that Rosemount would lose $500,000 annually running a community <br />center, officials "pretty quickly abandoned the idea," said City Administrator Logan Martin. <br />Instead, the city is helping Life Time Fitness with some construction costs; the city owns the <br />building and the land the fitness center sits on. <br />Several city officials compared the facilities to parks and libraries public spaces that aren't <br />supposed to turn a profit but enrich residents' lives. <br />City officials must choose whether to fill potholes, tackle affordable housing or invest in civic <br />centers, said Edward Erfurt, director of community action for Strong Towns, a nonprofit <br />dedicated to helping cities become financially resilient. The centers can help communities come <br />together, which is important, and can have benefits like reducing youth crime. <br />"Every investment we make on a municipal level, these are promises that we make in the <br />moment as an elected body," Erfurt said. "The struggle is, long term, the sustainability of these <br />systems." <br /> <br />