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🔧 City Manager David Deitch says Niceville is negotiating a lease with the Air Force to expand local sports fields.
💸 The proposed $65,000-a-year lease would be offset with in-kind services, with full development costs estimated at up to $15 million.
🏟️ Deitch is also working with local landowners and seeking community support to fund the most-requested project in his tenure: better sports facilities.
Niceville’s City Manager David Deitch revealed that they have made significant progress on expanding the city’s ballfields – through a possible long-term lease with the Air Force – and working with local property owners to create new facilities inside the city.
The Government Services Administration (GSA) wants something in the neighborhood of $65,000 a year in exchange for a lease on the land, According to Deitch.
The City Manager, a former Air Force Lawyer, hopes to pay that bill with in-kind services to his former employer.
He updated the public at a town hall event held at the Niceville Community Center.
Deitch noted that the most requested action items residents of Niceville bring up to him are the lack of ball fields and the quality of the turf for their fields.
Deitch says they are one problem. Heavy use nearly year-round means the fields don’t get a chance to recover – meaning they spiral into their current state. Last year, the city resodded one portion of the field for about $100,000.
That’s a band-aid fix to a surgery problem – Deitch argued. He hopes that a long-term lease for the 47 acres of land that makes up the Mullet Festival Grounds would allow them to invest in that land. Those investments, which could be as dramatic as turfing over the land (he subscribes to an ‘if you give me the money to do it, I will make it happen’ philosophy) could make all the difference for the fields – and even allow the facility to host tournaments and bring in tourism revenues to the city.
But the money is still a tall order – Deitch admitted. “to build the sports complex out there at Twin Oaks, Mullet Festival Site where we are considering [is] probably $10-15 million,” Deitch said, “Just for reference, our [the City of Niceville’s] entire general fund budget for this year is $24-25 million. It’s half a year of general fund money.”
Deitch says the answer lies in combining myriad sources of money to make the dream happen.
Everything is on the table, from getting companies to sponsor individual fields in the complex and get advertising rights on the field [Mid Bay News Stadium, anyone?] to more standard sources of cash like grants and community fundraising, which could help reduce the amount of cash needed to make the facility happen.
“This is the number one request that I’ve gotten from the community since I have been here,” Deitch explained, “If this is what you want, I need more than tax dollars to make it happen. Join me. Help me give the kids the fields they deserve, and I’ll get it done for you.”
While he was a little more cryptic about this initiative, Deitch spoke about his attempts to get some local landowners to donate land in other parts of town for sports facilities as well.
