Condit Road businesses believe outdoor sports complex will bring
visitors, revenue
Morgan Hill – A group of local sports organizations and Condit Road business owners haven’t given up hope that they’ll persuade city council members to widen their vision of a new outdoor sports complex and build a first-class facility.
“First-rate stuff is popping up all over the place,” said Donovan Mott, of the Orchard Valley Youth Soccer League. “To compete, we need to have it, too.”
Mott wants the city to do much more than restore a 12th field to the Condit Road Complex currently leased by the California Youth Soccer Association.
He believes the city needs to invest more than the $2.5 million currently budgeted for a new complex, add another 23 acres to the 38 acre complex, install turf, seating and lights, and lay fields for baseball, softball, football and lacrosse.
Those changes, he said, would attract thousands of athletes, coaches and family members to Morgan Hill every year.
“We have to convince the city council the extra land is needed,” Mott said. “We have to convince the city council that the benefit to the community is such it even merits consideration.”
Mott does have the support of the Morgan Hill business community, in particular the restaurants and hotels that depend on the dozens of the soccer tournaments held at the complex for much of their business.
“If we build this new multi-sport complex it needs to be first-class and have a regional component,” said David Dworkin, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites. “We need to leverage what we have now. We have parks and lakes and hiking places. I want to take that and build on it. This city has no identity and having the best multi-sport complex would put us on the map.”
But the city has no way to pay for a complex that could easily cost more than $10 million to build in addition to the cost of acquiring the land. The city spent $7.65 million on the land for the current complex.
A new sports complex is likely to be a topic discussed at the council’s two-day retreat scheduled for later this month.
Before the council recessed for the holidays, Councilman Larry Carr’s community services subcommittee listened to Mott and Dworkin’s proposal.
Carr said building a complex of that size and scope will require a change in the city’s recreation policy, which is focused more on providing services to Morgan Hill residents.
“Perhaps we need to reevaluate those goals and see if they’re still in line with where the community is.” he said. “We bought the property with an eye to increasing recreation services for local kids, but some of that has shifted. There’s a lot of interest in economic development and the budget problems in town have changed.”
Councilman Greg Sellers said he sees a sports complex as an opportunity to provide more amenities to residents and spur economic development.
“That’s rare, normally there’s a trade off,” Sellers said. “I’m trying to emphasize recreation through our economic redevelopment efforts because the potential is there to do two things at once. Have both a community benefit and a significant economic benefit.”
The CYSA hosts about 40 soccer tournaments a year that Dworkin said feed more than $4 million into the local economy.
He said there are 20 weekends a year when every hotel room in town is filled by players, coaches, parents and spectators, and a lot of opportunity for business growth.
“The $4 million will double within a couple of years,” Dworkin said. “Soccer is the biggest money maker, but baseball and lacrosse will do a lot. Baseball is the real driver.”
CYSA general manager Frank Marotto said his organization is interested in a long-term relationship with the city, regardless of whether a new complex is built. The current leases expires at the end of the year.
“We’ve been in one-year mode for several years and we’d like to not do that anymore,” Marotto said. “We are discussing what kind of changes we could make that would be beneficial to both parties.”
In the last two years, efforts to develop a new soccer complex with the city of San Jose just north of Sobrato High School and developing the Condit site with a private organization, the Coliseum Recreation Group, have failed.
Carr said the city will need a change in its luck if it is to build a major new complex, a task that will likely require private financing.
“We’ve talked a lot about private-public partnerships, but we’ve been unsuccessful making that a reality,” he said. “Everyone has positive goals and is going in the right direction, but when it comes down to it, that’s been a very difficult thing to do. Government and business work so differently that it’s hard to make a deal beneficial to everyone.”
While they’re not willing to help finance a new complex, hoteliers and restaurateurs are willing to help secure outside funding through field sponsorships, fundraisers and private-public ventures. Dworkin said the business owners, known informally as the Synergy Group, will help raise the difference between what the city can afford and a new complex requires.
“We will find a means to pay for the gap,” he said. “We don’t want the city to lose money on this once it’s built. My concern is to get the city to adopt a philosophy. Once they do that, it’s easier to discuss specifics and numbers and I can be in a position to bring people to the table.”
