PANAMA CITY BEACH — The pitch for a major sports complex in Panama City Beach is backed by some major players, but the line is still blurry on who’s going to play ball.
The Bay County Tourist Development Council (TDC) heard a presentation Tuesday to bring a minor league baseball team and new sports facilities to the area from Doré Energy Group, a group of six investors that has been researching the project’s feasibility for the last 18 months.
The group is backed primarily by Louisiana energy executive William J. Doré, whose net worth is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
Local attorney William Harrison, one of Doré Energy Group’s investors, began working on the project with Doré in 2012.
“When I met him in 2012, he said he was really interested in doing a sports facility in Bay County,” said Harrison, noting that Doré visited Panama City Beach in college and owns property in the Destin area. “He wants to provide wholesome athletic, recreational entertainment kind of things.”
But for Doré to invest, those things need to make a profit.
“He’s willing to invest in it, but there’s got to be a return on his investment,” Harrison said. “There’s got to be enough income for him.”
To make a profit, Harrison said, Doré Energy Group would need to partner with facilities operators with the same goal in mind.
Doré Energy Group’s full vision takes shape as an inclusive “sports village” concept, which would house a $30 million minor league stadium, outdoor amateur sports fields and an indoor sports complex, anchored by a variety of restaurants and entertainment options.
“The idea of a village or a complex that has all those components is really the ideal way to do this,” Harrison said. “What I challenged the TDC on Tuesday to do was to sit down and figure out that list of priorities, and then we can figure out how to fund that and where to put it and how to accumulate all that in a village.”
The minor league stadium likely would be owned by a public entity and home to either a AA or A baseball team.
“We’ve analyzed all over the country, and the vast majority of stadiums are owned by public entities because they’re considered to be community assets,” Harrison said. “The owner of the stadium would be a local, public entity and the owner would sign a long-term lease with the owner of the team.”
The group also has proposed that the other project components, indoor and outdoor facilities for amateur sports, be run by third-party operators who would be responsible for scheduling tournaments and events.
“The concept we’re working on is to work with operators and managers that have these facilities around the country that have that type of programming,” Harrison said.
For the baseball complex, Doré Energy Group is working with a big-name youth baseball programmer interested in opening a facility in Panama City Beach.
Harrison said the programmer they’re working with would bring in a much different demographic than the current tournaments at Frank Brown Park because cost for participation in the youth baseball program is much higher. To build the complex, the programmer would need to partner with another entity, like the TDC.
At Tuesday’s meeting, however, members of the TDC board expressed concern the additions would not provide any more fields for the many teams turned away each year because the fields at Frank Brown Park are booked, and could driving away existing business.
The comments were nothing new to Harrison, who worked on a similar project five years ago that was turned down by the TDC.
“Ultimately, the concern of the TDC was that the projects were too big,” Harrison said.
The potential partners instead channeled their efforts elsewhere, into the 1,300-acre LakePoint Sporting Community and Town Center, in Emerson, Ga, which is slated to open its first phase next month.
According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the first phase of the project alone is expected to cost about $160 million, and $1 billion at full build-out. LakePoint has been tied to big-name investors including former Atlanta Braves Manager Bobby Cox and current Manager Fredi Gonzalez.
At full build-out, the complex is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs and have an annual economic impact of $1 billion.
“From the board members’ perspective, that was probably not the right decision five years ago,” said Harrison, noting second chances don’t come around often. “This is a broader and larger concept than was presented last time.”