PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Bay County Tourist Development Council (TDC) is ready to throw out the first pitch on a project to build more amateur baseball fields in Panama City Beach.
At a meeting Tuesday, the board continued discussions after voting last month to explore public-private partnership opportunities to bring in a minor league baseball team and new sports facilities to the destination.
The board agreed that while a minor league baseball team would be a boon to the destination, they wanted to first focus on growing the capacity to host amateur baseball tournaments in Panama City Beach.
“Everyone is of the opinion that we need to move forward,” said board Chairman Buddy Wilkes. “Somewhere along the way, we can’t wait on minor league baseball.”
Wilkes said about 300 teams were turned down for tournament space at Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach this summer due to a lack of facilities.
Local attorney William Harrison, who pitched the minor league idea to the TDC last month along with a project for new amateur fields, said the TDC needed to meet with stakeholders to hammer out a list of priorities.
Harrison is part of a six-member group of investors called Doré Energy Group, backed primarily by wealthy Louisiana energy executive William J. Doré. The group has been researching the project’s feasibility for the last year and a half.
Doré Energy Group and the TDC also have been in conversation with major Bay County landholder the St. Joe Co. regarding potential partnerships, but St. Joe has not committed to anything.
“There has got to be a concerted effort,” Harrison said. “There’s got to be the time for somebody from this board, from the staff and the landowner to sit down and work through … the priorities.”
Harrison said that while the TDC has been saving money to construct more amateur baseball fields, a full facility would cost more than what they had on hand.
The TDC has $3.4 million set aside for tourism development projects and another $4.3 million from a final settlement with BP.
“What I was trying to propose to you last time … was to see what we could do to create synergy between all those to provide more things than we’ll be able to provide individually,” Harrison said.
With a goal to have more fields by 2015, the TDC agreed to push for a meeting with Doré Energy Group, the St. Joe Co., TDC member Andy Phillips and Panama City Beach City Manager Mario Gisbert.
“The ball fields, for us, they’ve got to come first,” Wilkes said. “If there’s a possibility that minor league baseball can be a part of this somewhere down the road, we want that first piece to be something that’s compatible and lends itself to the other part of it.”
Constructionof a minor league stadium would cost about $30 million for a 4,000-seat facility plus room for 1,500 fans sitting along an outfield berm.
Board member Mike Thomas said if a partnership doesn’t work out, the TDC could spend its money to expand the city’s facilities at Frank Brown Park by adding another “wheel” of fields.
“If we’ve got to build an extra wheel right now, we’ll build an extra wheel,” Thomas said.