The following is in Mr. Green’s own words as best as I could write them down. My comments are in parenthesis.
Mr. Green’s purpose in this discussion is to set the record straight and educate the public about his Sports Complex proposal.
Mr. Green did not provide or propose any financial arrangement for his Sports Complex proposal at the February 6, 2018 Commissioners meeting because he knew the county had certain North Carolina General Statutes (statutory) restraints with any private-public arrangement as he was proposing. Mr. Green wanted the county to do their own due diligence in finding out what they could or could not do under the law before starting any financial and contractual negotiations, as to do otherwise would waste a lot of everybody’s time.
Around March 2016, two years prior to his February 2018 presentation to the County Commissioners, Mr. Green learned that the City of Shelby intended to spend $millions on the City Park and the McBrayer Park and relatively nothing on the historic Holly Oak Park. Mr. Green approached the City of Shelby with propositions to purchase, lease or a combination purchase or lease of Holly Oak Park and make Holly Oak Park open to all. The City of Shelby said land covenants did not allow the sale of Holly Oak Park but he might be able to lease a part of the park. Mr. Green’s bankers were hesitant to make loans of $5 million for facilities that would be built on leased property.
In July of 2016 Mr. Green purchased 16 acres of private property land that adjoined Holly Oak Park and the Shelby High School baseball field that is used for the American Legion World Series. Mr. Green had this property cleared at his own expense. At that time the Holly Oak Park partial lease was still on the table, where the park would be used for sports outdoor training, summer camps hosted by former professional and college athletes and other sports related programs. But The City of Shelby later withdrew their offer to lease any Holly Oak Park property, despite their earlier written commitments of a detailed public private partnership with Mr. Green’s company.
Mr. Green had previously determined that Cleveland County had no Parks and Recreation Department to serve the entire county, but through a partnership, the County could easily have one. In July of 2016 Mr. Green approached Cleveland County and was told that they had no interest (although they had already accepted a transfer of 40 acres from Polkville for the construction of a Ballfield-sports complex). Mr. Green’s research indicated there were many “indoor travel ball” events (basketball, volleyball, gymnastics etc.) that lacked local facilities but would bring in tournaments for over 40 weekends per year, with an economic impact estimate of $8-$10 million per year in weekend hotel stays, restaurants visits and retail sales. Compared to the American League World Series which brings in an event for only 10 days. County “leaders” at that time (Like Jason Falls) refused to talk to Mr. Green about his sports event hosting ideas.
To show there is a demand and dire need for an indoor sports training facility in Cleveland County. In May 2017, Mr. Green purchased with his own money, the Historic Old Cleveland Training School building located at 341 Hudson St. where the African American students attended school before desegregation. And he converted the former school gymnasium into an indoor turf field and weight room sports training facility, where currently many of our local student-athletes, college athletes who are from the county and athletes from other school districts are training together as one group(s) or as individuals. And travel baseball and softball teams from the county rent the facility on weekends for team practice.
After the February 6, 2018 presentation it was determined that according to NC General Statue on Public Private Partnerships, there were three options for a public-private partnership in a Sports Complex that Cleveland County could do:
Help financially with infrastructure cost. (County presently builds “Spec” structures to help with economic development.) The County would not do this for Mr. Green, citing the NC Statue prohibits the county from assisting a private business in construction cost or site development.
County build structures and lease back to Mr. Green to operate. The County again said No to Mr. Green (although the County spends $Millions on the Old Courthouse and leases to Destination Cleveland County for $1 per year for 10 years with the option for another 10 years at $1 per year. The County even gave away the Old Doran Mill property for nothing, allowed the recipients to sell $1 million of scrap metal off the property, mill the old mill beams for flooring at the NewGrass Brewery and then the recipients gave the property back to the County.)
Mr. Green would finance the Sports Complex himself and the County would lease time for the facilities to be used by all four high school’s athletic programs, and the public would be allowed to use facilities and its’ amenities at certain set times during the week. The amount of the lease would be at “Fair Market Rates determined by a comparative analysis of other such Sports Complex facilities.
(Option three above seems to be the only way Cleveland County will do business with Mr. Green, an African American. Presently Cleveland County has not done business with any African American owned business.)
Where the Sports Complex stands at this very moment-Option 3: Mr. Green is set to finance the Sports Complex himself at a cost of between $5-6 Million. Mr. Green would operate the facilities and all Cleveland County has to do is provide Mr. Green a lease and service agreement, detailing the partnership of what will be given to the county and what will be received from the county. Mr. Green has provided Cleveland County a formal and legal proposal to do this. All that is necessary to close the deal is for Cleveland County to agree on a Fair Market Rate and sign the papers.
