116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
UI Sailing Club told to vacate Macbride Nature Recreation Area three years early
Philanthropy could throw lifeline to displaced programs
Nov. 2, 2025 5:30 am
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
IOWA CITY — As the University of Iowa winds down operations at the 485-acre Macbride Nature Recreation Area — having decided to terminate its 66-year lease of the property and with it the discovery, innovation and exploration of the land that’s captivated elementary students to UI professors for decades — officials are notifying programs using the facility about next steps, including when they need to be out.
For the UI Sailing Club — which has been casting off on Lake Macbride for 60 years — the date by which it must exit the MNRA land and water is June 30, 2026, according to UI Sailing Club instructor and professor emeritus Warren Darling.
That’s three years before the UI lease officially expires June 30, 2029.
“We thought we would have a little more time, at least another year,” Darling said of the message his club received this fall from UI officials. “We were hoping with that extra time that some entity would take it over and allow us to rent from them.”
When the university in July announced its plan to exit the generational no-cost lease with the Army Corps of Engineers, administrators acknowledged the educational and recreational programs that have called the property home for decades and promised that three “will continue beyond the MNRA lease expiration.”
Those programs — School of the Wild, Wildlife Camps, and the Iowa Raptor Project — will move to new locations, although officials didn’t immediately have the details ironed out.
“The university will work with colleges, units, and the Corps of Engineers to determine the next steps in the wind-down of operations at the MNRA,” officials said in July. “The university expects to determine these steps sometime this fall.”
UI officials last week told The Gazette, “We don’t have anything new to share at this time.”
Among the programs not promised a future in the UI lease announcement was the Sailing Club, which — with its limited student org resources and donations through a designated Center for Advancement fund — has undertaken its own efforts to chart a course forward.
“My initial reaction was just kind of like, I guess, ‘oh man’ is the best way to put it,” UI Sailing Club vice commodore Aiden Truesdell told The Gazette. “Definitely sad, a little stressed, a little defeated. But I think very quickly we kind of realized that decision has already been made. So what can we do to continue the club?”
No source of funds
The UI decision to exit its MNRA lease with the Corps of Engineers — dating back to 1959 — came after years of budget woes, COVID pains, Derecho damage, and management changes.
Because while the lease is technically free, per the agreement, the university is responsible for all maintenance and operational costs associated with the property and programming — adding up to six-figure deficits in recent years.
Recreation Services in the UI Division of Student Life covered those costs before transferring the programming — along with its financial burden — to the UI College of Education in 2021.
A 2023 plan for the area set a “goal of having funding responsibilities taken over by the University of Iowa’s general fund in coming years.”
But that never happened. And, despite his appeals, College of Education Dean Dan Clay last year told his staff that UI administrators had denied him funding help — amplifying rumors of UI intentions to exit Macbride altogether.
“I do not know if a final decision on that has been made by the university or not,” Clay said in a June 2024 email to a question about the UI lease.
A short time later, UI officials announced a “standard review” of its MNRA use “to ensure fiscal sustainability and alignment with the university’s mission of excellent education and research opportunities for a broad array of students.”
The review committee’s final report issued May 1, 2025 determined the university would need to invest nearly $15 million right away, in the next year, to maintain the property “in a safe and reliable manner” and spend more than $900,000 a year going forward.
“There is currently no specific UI or departmental source of funds allocated for these expenses,” according to the report.
‘Restore the premises’
Per the lease, should the university opt not to renew, it must vacate the premises, remove its property, and “restore the premises to a condition satisfactory to the district engineer.” If the university doesn’t remove its properties, they will transfer at no cost to the Corps, which can then charge the UI for any restoration or removal work it does.
The UI Sailing Club uses a boat ramp, dock, social center, and attached boat house on the MNRA land — based at the south arm of Lake Macbride.
“I presume if it goes back to the Army Corps of Engineers, all those buildings have to come down, unfortunately,” Darling said. “And the social center and boat house are in a pretty nice building. I mean, it's not beautiful. But it's a good, solid building. And the social center is nice inside.”
They also use two sheds to store the club’s 35 to 40 boats — some of which have been put up for sale on the UI Surplus website.
“But that unfortunately proceeds very slowly,” he said.
In investigating alternate homes for the Sailing Club — like on the lake’s north arm — Darling said students are running into cost issues.
“Unless we're able to negotiate something, it's like $350 a year per boat,” he said. “Right now, it's $200 some a year … So we have some funds. And the students are doing a fundraiser.”
Sailing Club commodore Truesdell said the club has an open fund through the UI Center for Advancement bringing in donations.
“And we just wrapped up a fundraiser with an outside organization that's meant to help student orgs,” he said. “We were able to raise just over $5,000.”
But complicating the club’s fundraising efforts is a recent university change prohibiting the general public from participating in or joining student organizations.
“Without public members, it's very difficult to bring in enough money, because the number of students just has not been that high ever since COVID,” Darling said.
Designated funds
The UI Center for Advancement — the university’s fundraising foundation — has five different funds related to programming at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area, each founded in different years but combining for a total over their lifetimes of $531,734.
The UI Sailing Club fund, since its inception in 1980, has raised a total of $34,684 from 239 donors — with a current available balance of $5,962.
The fund that’s raised the most since its creation in 1985 is the UI Wild Fund with $317,557 — sitting at a current available balance of $22,716. Money donated to that fund supports a variety of UI Wild educational and recreation programming at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area.
Second to the larger umbrella UI Wild fund in donations is the School of the Wild fund, which already has raised $85,160 since its recent launch in 2022 — with a current available balance of $37,946.
School of the Wild — aimed at increasing outdoor learning experiences for elementary and middle school students — is a UI College of Education collaboration with local school districts, conservation boards, and other entities dating back to 1991.
Involving 98 schools across 44 counties, School of the Wild reaches more than 6,000 students annually — including those across the 21 elementaries in the Iowa City Community School District that undertake their School of the Wild experience at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area.
A fund for the Macbride-based Iowa Raptor Project — which aims to connect students and the general public to “the conservation of birds of prey and their natural habitats through transformative educational experiences and collaborative research projects” — has raised $72,313 since its start in 2021.
That fund has the largest current balance of $49,963 — with its future, like the Sailing Club, still up in the air.
“To remain active, it will require new facilities and a confirmed site,” according to the UI MNRA review committee report.
Macbride Nature Recreation Area funds
Sailing Club Building Fund
Established: 12/30/1980
Number of donors: 239
Cumulative gifts since inception: $34,683.90
Current Balance: $5,961.76
Iowa Raptor Project Fund
Established 5/21/2021
Number of donors: 444
Cumulative gifts since inception: $72,313.36
Current Balance: $49,962.97
UI Wild Fund
Established 12/4/1985
Number of donors: 1,524
Cumulative gifts since inception: $317,556.92
Current Balance: $22,716
UI Wild: School of the Wild Fund
Established: 9/30/2022
Number of donors: 31
Cumulative gifts since inception: $85,160
Current Balance: $37,946.25
Iowa Wildlife Camps Crowdfunding
Established: 5/31/2023
Number of donors: 138
Cumulative gifts since inception: $22,020.44
Current Balance: $5,448.25
Source: University of Iowa Center for Advancement.
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com
Daily Newsletters