New sports complex proposed in Pierce City

The transfer of ownership of the Pierce City North Park, where the ball fields are located, advanced over the past month, coinciding with a proposal to build a major private sports complex near the public school campus. 
The Pierce City school district in August renewed its lease agreement with the city for the ball field complex. Amos Mize, who serves on both the school board and the city council, reported school leadership reviewed their master plan, suggesting it would be easier to invest in something the district owned. The school has the ball fields on a 99-year lease. The concession stand was placed on the property by the school booster club. City Clerk Julie Johnson said the city has no insurance on the property. 
Mize suggested the city sell the property to the school district. Other councilmen concurred but insisted that should the school consider selling the property, the city would have first rights. Ward 3 Alderman Jarrod Jarvis noted the school would rightly not consider upgrading the ball fields without owning them. 
The park was rebuilt after the May 4, 2003 tornado, when the site was used to dump debris from demolishing the downtown buildings. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funded the reconstruction and improved the earlier facility be. Its use has been a political point of contention for decades, mostly from neighbors complaining about noise from games and intrusion on their property by spectators. It’s unclear what recourse residents would have if the property was owned by the school district. 
 
Mayor speaks to school board
At the Oct. 12 city council meeting, Mayor Todd Killingsworth reported he spoke at the school board’s September meeting. The school would prepare the paperwork transferring ownership. The city would have to survey the property for its part in the transaction. Mize reported school officials would accept all the requirements set by the city for the sale. 
While this discussion has been underway, Century 21 realtor Jennifer Prine spoke at the city council’s Oct. 12 meeting about a proposal from Gold Properties, the firm that purchased both the former Town and Country Supermarket building and the Old Town Pharmacy building nearby. Prine said Austin and Jennifer Gold have also secured a contract on approximately 16 acres of land along the east side Gibbs Avenue, south of Adams Avenue and the elementary school. 
 
Complex proposition
The Golds would like to develop a major private sports complex, with baseball and softball fields, a football field in one corner, an indoor facility the size of a regulation baseball field, and extensive parking woven between the four major complexes. Prine said the Golds have no timetable for building this facility. 
To date, the Golds have done very little with other buildings they purchased. The grocery store reportedly will serve as a warehouse, and the pharmacy will become offices. Prine said this reflects the Golds’ general plans and speed. “Chances are really good it would go slow,” she said. 
The issue with the sports complex, Prine said, stems from a pre-existing plat of the land that divided it into numerous residential lots with extensions of east-west Washington and Main streets. Prine said the Golds’ development of the land requires the city to vacate those streets. 
Presently the Heeter family owns the land. Prine said the family offered to sell the land to the school district, which declined. If the sports complex is built, the Golds would allow the school to use it. 
Secondly, Prine said the land is in the floodplain. Its use by the Golds would depend on a determination by FEMA. In an expensive survey paid for by the Golds, FEMA would have to determine if elevated roads could be built above the flood zone. The Golds were prepared, she added, to rearrange their plan for the complex to allow for stormwater runoff under FEMA’s determination. However, the city would first have to vacate the streets before the Golds could close on the property and pay for the FEMA study. 
The land in question provides a drainway from the north that curves around the school district bus barn and feeds into Larkin Creek, where the creek cuts across Gibbs Avenue, south of Hwy. 37. Prior to the reconstruction of Hwy. 37 at Gibbs, Larkin Creek was responsible for a fatal drowning in the 1941 flood. A study by the Natural Resources Conservation Service on how to reduce flooding in Pierce City, made while Carol Hirsch served as mayor, determined placing a retention dam in the vicinity of the Heeter property would not significantly reduce major flooding in the city. 
Since vacating the streets posed no expense to the city, and no strategic advantage appeared in keeping them, council members approved dropping the streets from the city’s map. Killingsworth noted that the section still has a platted north-south extension of Decatur Street, extending north from the Grande Tire property. Prine agreed that would not affect the Golds’ plan. 
A member of the Heeter family, who is an attorney, had planned to approach the city about vacating the streets, but had been called out of the area. Prine said she stepped in to speak to help advance the Golds’ proposal.