A sports complex is expected to be among the recommendations when Vicksburg’s ad hoc committee on recreation delivers its report Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in a public meeting at the Vicksburg Auditorium.
“We’re recommending the sports complex based on our research and the response we received from the public at the meetings we held and from speaking to other organizations, and from our website and petitions,” committee chairman Omar Nelson said.
He said the committee report will include a rendering of the proposed park together with a suggested size.
“We will not recommend a location, because the committee was not tasked to do that, and we will not make a recommendation for funding. Those are things the board (of mayor and aldermen) will have to address,” he said. He added the committee will also recommend keeping and upgrading the city’s existing neighborhood parks and other recreation facilities.
The committee at one time discussed the possibility of a recreation complex using about 200 acres of land, and Nelson in October suggested such a facility could cost between $20 million and $40.
Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said in November if the committee recommends a sports complex he will appoint a site committee to find a location and a finance committee to look at funding options.
The recreation committee was appointed in May by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to examine the city’s recreation programs and present recommendations to improve the overall program over the next five years by Dec. 31.
It first met on June 5 and began discussions that indicated a move toward a multipurpose recreation complex
Shortly after its meetings began, the committee developed and began circulating a petition supporting a sports complex and held three public meetings on recreation in August and September in which a recreation complex was discussed. Nelson and other committee members also addressed local civic groups to discuss the committee’s objectives, including a multipurpose recreation complex.
In September, the committee opened a website and a Facebook page to get public comments on a recreation complex, and members toured complexes and talked with recreation directors in Clinton, Ridgeland and Southaven.
The committee’s activities marked the third time a recreation complex for the city has been discussed.
In 2003, the city bought the 200-acre Fisher Ferry Road property near St. Michael Catholic Church for a sports complex for $325,000. The project was abandoned in 2009 after an additional $2.7 million had been spent for preliminary plans, engineering and dirt work. The city has spent $55,343 since August 2012 to replace the concrete in the drainage chutes on the site with riprap and grout under a Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality mandate.
The board in March put the property up for sale for a 90-day period, but there was no response. The board in November revised its interest in the Fisher Ferry property as a possible recreation complex site, and hired Stantec Consulting Services of Jackson to determine the feasibility of building one of two access roads from the property, to U.S. 61 South, or to Dana Road.
Efforts to remake Halls Ferry Park into a $25 million sportsplex fell apart when the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality frowned on the project’s suitability because, as known throughout the process, part of the park was built on what was once the city’s landfill. Separate pieces of land in south Warren County totaling 145 acres owned by the Aquila Group, which had proposed to build and manage the fields and sports facilities, went to tax sale Aug. 26.
In 2007, the city board hired USA Partners Sports Alliance of Jacksonville, Fla., for $250,000 to determine the feasibility of a proposed $25 million sports complex at Halls Ferry Park, including Bazinsky Field.
Under an agreement between the city and USA Partners, which was hired after the Aquila Group approached the city, the company would return the $250,000 feasibility study cost to the city if the complex did not materialize. The city sued USA when the company did not return the money, and received a judgment against the company.
More than seven years later, the city so far has received $8,909 from the company and is trying to collect more, City Attorney Nancy Thomas said.
Former mayor Paul Winfield in 2012 promoted an estimated $20 million sports complex funded by a half-cent sales tax. Mayor George Flaggs Jr., who was a state legislator at the time and had a hand in bringing a potential tax increase to a vote, opposed the project because there were too many uncertainties with the project. The project died when the chairman of the House Local and Private Committee refused to introduce the bill.