The city could decide Thursday to buy the Joe DiMaggio Sports Complex field house with fees collected from developers.
By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS
Published August 1, 2004
CLEARWATER - For four years, the main building at the Joe DiMaggio Sports Complex has been sitting on land leased from St. Petersburg College.
All that could change on Thursday.
On that day, Clearwater's city council will vote on whether to approve buying the land and the building from SPC. Both parties have agreed on the $2.15-million price.
SPC's board of trustees approved their end of the deal last week. If Clearwater follows suit, then the 4.5-acre sliver of land within the larger, 32-acre Joe DiMaggio Sports Complex at 2450 Drew Street will belong to Clearwater.
"It's going to provide us with land that's going to allow us to do something of significance," said Kevin Dunbar, Clearwater's director of parks and recreation. "We're making it a 37-acre site. In the future, we will determine whether or not to retain the building."
For right now, the building will stay, he added. Indoor gymnasiums are at a premium, and the city needs them. Plus, the building hosts between 50,000 and 75,000 visitors annually, Dunbar said.
SPC used to own the entire 37-acre tract, which at one point was a garbage dump and landfill. But most of the land was sold to Clearwater earlier in the decade. SPC leased the remaining acreage and the building to Clearwater for $1 a year. Clearwater was originally interested in the property as a possible location for a new baseball stadium.
The junior college's Clearwater campus is just south and across the street from the sports complex. A handful of SPC sports teams practiced there, but most moved or are moving to the St. Petersburg campus. The college deemed the land surplus property.
"It was a very easy negotiation," said Susan Reiter, SPC's director of facilities planning and institutional services. "We're removing the few items that belong to us and since they're already in there using it, they're just going to continue to operate it. They own the ballfields and the parking all around it."
The move should not affect students, except for those athletes who will be relocated to St. Petersburg as part of SPC's move to streamline their athletics department. "It's obviously more economical and better for the programs to have everything and everybody located in one space," Reiter said.
Clearwater's purchase money is coming from Recreation Open Space Impact Fees. The fees are paid to the city whenever someone develops or redevelops a property, Dunbar said.
"If you add more people or take away green space, then you need to contribute to this fund so the city can provide recreation space for everyone," said Assistant City Manager Garry Brumback. "Transportation and water and sewer impact fees work the same way."
Those funds can be used only to purchase green space or land for open space recreation, Dunbar said.
"We won't decrease services," he added. "It's a straight land purchase out of money only available for land purchase, and it's about cleaned out that pot for right now."
