Hoover City Council votes 6-1 to build $70 million Sportsplex next to Hoover Met

The Hoover City Council on Monday night, with a standing-room only crowd, voted 6-1 to approve a new sports complex next to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium that is expected to cost $70 million.

The complex is set to include six soccer/lacrosse/football fields, eight baseball/softball fields, 15 tennis courts, a 2-mile walking track, playground, splash pad and a 141,000-square-foot indoor facility that can be used for sports, trade shows, meetings, banquets and graduation ceremonies.

The indoor facility will be able to accommodate a full-size football or soccer field, nine regulation-size basketball courts, 12 regulation-size volleyball courts or six indoor tennis courts.

It will not be tall enough to accommodate a football game with punting but could handle a 7-on-7 game, said Jeffrey Brewer, the regional president for the Goodwyn Mills & Cawood architectural firm that presented details on the complex Monday night.

The indoor facility also is slated to include a recreational walking track suspended 14 feet in the air, an athletic training and rehab center, a food court and a covered walkway connecting it to the Hoover Met.

The indoor facility should be able to seat 2,400 for banquets and 5,000 for events with general seating, such as a graduation ceremony or concert, Hoover Mayor Gary Ivey said.

The entire complex is to be built on 120 acres to the south and east of the Hoover Met. The city already owns 103 of the acres and would like to buy 17 more from the Hoover Board of Education to make the project work, Hoover Executive Director Allen Pate said.

All the outdoor fields would have artificial turf, Pate said. The project would add about 1,700 parking spaces, bringing the total number of parking spaces at the Met to about 5,000, he said.

Numerous representatives from Hoover youth sports leagues spoke in favor of the complex Monday night, but other residents asked the council to postpone a vote to give residents more time to assess the project and give feedback. The council proceeded with a vote anyway.

'Begging for these fields'

City officials have been working behind the scenes to find space for such an athletic complex for about two years, Pate said. The city has not added any athletic fields in 15 years, and new facilities are needed to handle the city’s growing population and attract bigger sports tournaments, Pate said.

Just in the past 10 years, the youth football program has grown from 200 children to 1,000 children, while lacrosse has sprung up from nothing to more than 500 children now, Pate said.

Hoover also has 1,800 children involved in its fall and spring soccer programs and 1,300 playing baseball, Pate said. There are 100 adult softball teams playing on three fields at Spain Park, with four games per night on each field and no time available for practices, he said.

“Parks and Recreation has lagged behind, and it’s time to catch up,” Pate said.

Several representatives from Hoover youth sports leagues said this facility is much needed and long overdue in Hoover.

“We’ve been beating this drum for the past 10 years, begging for these fields,” said Rickey Phillips, president of the Hoover Parks and Recreation Board. “This right here is a godsend.”

John Parker, president of the Hoover Softball Association, said the recreational softball program has grown from 150 girls to 325 in the past five years, and the number of travel softball teams has risen from three to 10, now including 110 players, he said.

“The facilities we have are old, and there’s not enough space,” Parker said.

Plus, a facility like this, when combined with existing softball fields in Hoover, will allow the city to be host for more softball tournaments and teams coming from other areas, Parker said.

Right now, Hoover has only four softball fields big enough for tournament play, and they can handle only about 35 to 40 teams, Parker said. So when tournaments come to town, they have to spread outside of Hoover to fields in places such as Vestavia Hills, Trussville and Hueytown, he said.

With this complex, Hoover will be able to handle tournaments with 180 to 200 teams and likely could even get the World Series, which has 400 to 500 teams, he said.

“We can fill the hotels. We can fill the restaurants. They can buy gas – all in one city,” he said.

Hoover’s softball fields are booked 9 ½ months out of the year with tournaments, and even more want to come, he said.

Richard Bisso, president of the Hoover Soccer Club, said the families that travel with Hoover soccer teams spend $500 to $800 per family per weekend when they go out of town.

“I think it would be outstanding to have that here in our community,” he said. “There is something to sports tourism.”

Economic impact

The Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated the Hoover Sportsplex would have an economic impact of $27 million to $33 million a year. Some of that estimation was based on numbers from the Birmingham Crossplex, Pate said.

The city plans to borrow roughly $70 million to build the complex, which initially would increase the city’s annual debt service payments from $9.2 million to $11.6 million, Pate said. However, all of the city of Hoover’s current debt is slated to expire in five years, so in 2023, the city’s annual debt payments would drop to $4.6 million, Pate said.

From an operational standpoint, the Hoover Sportsplex likely will require six new employees and have a total annual operating cost $1,020,000, Pate said. The city expects to gain about $920,000 a year in direct revenue from facility rentals, so the net direct operational loss would be about $100,000 a year, Pate said.

However, 3 percent of the expected economic impact (sales taxes) would generate $900,000 a year, much more than offsetting the cost, he said.

Plus, the facility is a great benefit to the quality of life in Hoover, Ivey said.

Requests to delay vote

Bluff Park resident Steve Hertz asked the council to postpone its vote until Jan. 19 to give residents more time to study and comment on such an expensive project.

Hoover resident Dustin Chandler said unless council members could honestly say they are providing the Hoover school system enough money to fund a top-notch school system, they should postpone the vote.

Councilman John Greene was the only council member to vote against the project. Greene said the sports complex would be an outstanding addition to the city, but the timing for a vote Monday night was not right.

Questions still remain about whether the city is providing enough money for its school system, and until those questions are resolved, he is not in favor of such a large expenditure, he said. He recommended the council postpone its vote until its next meeting in January, but no one would second his motion to table the vote.

More money for Hoover schools

The council did vote Monday night on several measures that will increase the city’s contribution to the Hoover Board of Education by an estimated $1.3 million to $1.5 million a year.

Since 2009, the Hoover City Council has allocated $2 million for Hoover City Schools each year, but the school system has paid the city roughly $1 million back to cover the cost of school resource officers.

One resolution approved by the council Monday night reaffirmed the city’s annual $2 million contribution to the school system, and a second one called for the city to pay 100 percent of the cost of school resource officers, saving the school system roughly $850,000 to $1 million.

A third resolution approved Monday night allows the school system to receive $1,500 for every building permit for a new house built in the city, in addition to the $2 million allocation.

Homebuilders already are paying the $1,500 “front-door fee” to the city, and the city is forwarding that money to the schools, but the money has been included as a part of the total $2 million allocation. Now, the front-door fees will be additional money going to the school system.

Pate said that in fiscal 2015, the front-door fees amounted to about $460,000. Of course, that amount would fluctuate based on the number of new houses built in Hoover each year.

Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said Monday night she is “delighted for anything and everything the City Council is willing to do for us” and she appreciates the city agreeing to pay the full cost of school resource officers and provide the “front-door fees” in addition to its $2 million allocation that has been provided since fiscal 2009.

For many years, the city of Hoover gave both the front-door fees and 16 percent of sales tax revenues to the school system. If that formula had been used in fiscal 2014, it would have amounted to about $11.4 million for Hoover schools, if the front-door fees were roughly the same amount as in 2015.

When Murphy was asked if the new money approved tonight by the council was enough for Hoover schools, she said that she is an advocate for children.

“We’re delighted that they’re helping out and identifying ways they can support our school system further,” she said. “I hope we’ll continue to collaborate with the city to identify other additional ways we can work together to support our schools.

“As public education goes in Hoover, so goes Hoover city,” Murphy said. “I’m grateful for what they’re doing … I hope this is the beginning."