Opening Condit Road soccer fields for public use could
ultimately cost the city tournaments
Morgan Hill – Plans to open the Condit Road soccer complex to more local youth likely will spell the end of the city’s relationship with the California Youth Soccer Association.
“We need to make the fields multi-use and a shared facility,” Councilman Steve Tate said of the 12 soccer fields that are mostly closed to Morgan Hill residents. “Keeping [the CYSA] long-term is wishful thinking, but we should try.”
Council members say they they’re not giving up on outdoor sports as an economic engine, only recognizing that pumping public money into the Condit Road complex is not the way to achieve that goal.
“We bought that land for community recreation needs,” City Manager Ed Tewes said. “We recognize we can’t achieve that objective [immediately], and in the interim, the CYSA is welcome to use it.”
The city does hope to sign the CYSA to a contract that will keep soccer tournaments in town through 2009, but officials will also move forward with plans that they realize could hasten the group’s exit.
The city will use $2.5 million in redevelopment funds to improve parking at the facility and build concession stands. One or two of the existing 11 fields will be converted to artificial turf so local teams can use them during the week and on weekends when the CYSA is not in town. The grass fields are closed during the week to keep them in good repair.
Those changes are positive in the eyes of the CYSA, but the city’s plan also calls for converting half the soccer fields into baseball fields. That arrangement won’t be good enough to keep CYSA in town or attract other regional sports groups to the city.
“What we need is more fields and more fields and more fields,” CYSA general manager Frank Marotto said. “We are looking for assurances that the number of fields will stay intact or even increase.”
The CYSA hosts about 40 tournaments a year in Morgan Hill. It’s contract with the city expires at the end of the year and Marotto said the CYSA wants to ink a long-term deal, in Morgan Hill or elsewhere, to give the organization more stability.
The city’s decision has upset the local business community, particularly hotel and restaurant owners who say they depend on the CYSA tournaments for their livelihood.
David Dworkin, manager of the Holiday Inn Express has said that the CYSA feeds more than $4 million annually 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. More tournaments in a variety of sports, he said, would equal more opportunity for business growth and contribute more tax dollars to the city’s coffers.
Dworkin leads a group of local businesses that has been pushing the city to add an additional 23 acres of land to the 38-acre site and construct a complex with turf, seating and lights, and fields for soccer, baseball, softball, football and lacrosse.
There’s no room in the city budget for such a project that would cost more than $10 million in addition to the cost of the land. The city spent $7.65 million for the 38 acres in July 2001. The CYSA has hosted tournaments there since 1993.
The city used RDA money to buy the land, but Tewes said it wouldn’t be appropriate to tap that fund, which is supposed to benefit the community, to expand the complex for the good of the CYSA and local businesses, which are outside the benefit zone.
“It’s not a valid purpose of RDA to buy land for the purpose of supporting businesses that are not in the project area,” Tewes said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a bad purpose, it’s just a restriction on your ability to use RDA money.”
Dan Ehrler, executive director of the Morgan Chamber of Commerce, said the city is being short-sighted in its approach to the complex, which he said could have a tremendous positive impact on the entire city.
“Our concern is what ultimately down the line will be the impact for the businesses on Condit Road, but it goes beyond that to the positive impacts on other businesses in Morgan Hill,” Ehrler said. “We’re concerned about what the impact will be economically and customer-wise down the line. I hope the conversation continues on an outdoor sports complex that will focus on the needs of local sports activities, but I think a regional component of that would be important to economically sustain such a program.”
Dworkin’s group has pledged to find funding to expand the complex, but Councilman Greg Sellers said the city will look elsewhere for a possible private-public partnership to keep the CYSA in Morgan Hill.
“I tend to be a little more optimistic for putting something together with the CYSA,” Sellers said. “I think there’s a way to keep them in the mix, and we can foster elements in the private sector. In their perfect world, the CYSA would stay in Morgan Hill, which is encouraging, and there’s agreement that we want to keep them until the last possible moment.”
