One bid submitted for Lee rec complex

LEESBURG — The Lee County Board of Commissioners recently sent out requests for local landowners to sell 80 to 100 acres of land to be used for a new recreation complex. At the 2 p.m. deadline on Friday, the only proposal submitted came from the city of Leesburg.

Leesburg City Manager Bob Alexander was on location when Lee County Co-Manager Mike Sistrunk opened the bid. Jeremy Morey, the Parks and Recreation director for the county, also was present when the bid was opened.

On behalf of the city of Leesburg, Alexander submitted a bid on 100 acres of land located on the west side of the four-lane divided U.S. Highway 19 Bypass in the incorporated city limits. The proposed price of the land is $5,000 per acre for a total cost of $500,000.

The current zoning and use of the property is agriculture. According to the proposal, the city of Leesburg will build a public road connecting Cheshire Park to the proposed site with utilities to serve the recreation complex. Attached to the proposal was a signed Option to Purchase between Michigan Homes Inc. and the city of Leesburg. The site is located approximately 1,000 feet from the nearest residential homes with a wooded area in between.

The bid goes on to state that the city would purchase the land and then sell it to the county at no additional cost if the bid is approved.

Sistrunk said the County Commission could vote to approve the bid as early as next week, or commissioners may wait until their December meeting or possibly until after the first of the year.

“There will need to be some deed research, soil tests and other preliminary things done,” Sistrunk said.

Meanwhile, Alexander wrote in his proposal that Leesburg has already filed a request with the Georgia Department of Transportation for a public road access to this site and anticipates a favorable response. Alexander said he also anticipates funding from the DOT to assist with financing the connector road and utilities for the site.

After realizing that his bid was the only one submitted, Alexander said, “The city gave the best bid possible for this project. I am very optimistic that it will go forward.”

Sistrunk said he is certain it will be a topic of discussion when commissioners meet next week.

Morey said it is entirely up to the commissioners to decide if this location is best suited for the recreational needs of Lee County residents.

“What I can say is that I have heard from the people in Lee County, and they want sports fields — football, baseball, girls softball,” Morey said. “There has been a lot of talk about an ag center — after all, we are a farming community. I have heard people say they want an amphitheater and passive recreation like bike paths and walkways. We all know everything will have to be phased in. We will have to prioritize what comes first ,and we will finance much of it with SPLOST funds.”

Morey said one of his biggest concerns has been to get ball fields in one centralized location instead of having them spread out all over the county — and to get more parking.

“We currently have 500 participating in our ball teams but only about 200 parking spaces,” he said. “When our parks were built 20 years ago, we had to fit them into whatever spaces were available. The infrastructure for those parks was small and now many of our buildings are outdated.”

Morey said a new recreation complex, no matter where it is located, will bring bathrooms, scoreboards and other things up-to-date and will improve the parking issues.

“We are a forward-thinking county, and we need a community recreation complex that puts our kids and the community together,” he said.