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Bumpy is the road to new motocross facility

An unexpected layer of muck at the site and the withdrawal of a consultant slow down the St. Petersburg BMX Club.

ST. PETERSBURG - Early last year, officials and members at the bicycle motocross track at Walter Fuller Park began looking forward to moving to a bigger site near the county's garbage incinerator.

The early plans called for the Walter Fuller site to close in 2004, with the new track to be open by fall of that year.

The Walter Fuller track is still open and no date has been set for the St. Petersburg BMX Club to move into the 10-acre site at 10202 28th St. N. Some work has been done on the property, however.

"It's not stopped or delayed," said Timothy Mays, a BMX club official. "Is it going through at the pace we like? No."

A work crew found an unexpected layer of muck on the site and dealing with that discovery has slowed things down.

"That is one of the reasons," Mays said. He said the club also does not have a project consultant.

Robert Kersteen, a former St. Petersburg City Council member, had been the consultant. He withdrew from the project late last month.

"We had some misunderstandings," Kersteen said.

City and county government are both involved in the project, but neither is overseeing it.

A $134,000 recreation grant from Pinellas County is helping finance part of the work. The grant originally was approved in 2003, extended once, and is going to be extended again.

"We're in the process now of amending it. The new termination date will be Nov. 17, 2006," said Lyle Fowler, the county park department's operations manager.

The county will lease the land to the BMX club for $1 a year, the same deal the club had with St. Petersburg for about 25 years.

The city's Environmental Development Commission approved the BMX club's site plan on March 14. EDC approval was required because the property, while county-owned, is inside St. Petersburg's city limits. It is zoned for industrial parks.

The EDC's approval was contingent upon the club meeting several conditions. Among them were parking, paving, drainage management and waste collection. The club is also responsible for extending water and sewer mains as needed.

Even though the new track is not a city project, the city may offer some guidance, said services administrator Lee Metzger. A meeting among key city staff members will be held later this month.

Plans call for a city skate park at the Walter Fuller site when the BMX club moves to its new location.