By REID TUCKER
A motorsports facility capable of hosting IndyCar, Formula 1 and NASCAR events may be in DeFuniak Springs’ near future.
While race fans recognize the prestige associated with those international elite-level motorsports organizations, a straightforward explanation is in order for those who aren’t fans of auto racing. In short, this development could mean projected revenues of $50 million and upward of 500 jobs in every sector from research to hospitality and retail, all to be added to the local economy and all, perhaps, sooner rather than later.
Mayor Bob Campbell laid out some of the broad strokes of the project to the City Council and the audience gathered for the Oct. 26 meeting. Though enthusiastic, Campbell couldn’t get too specific yet, as the team of investors (one of them with the surname “Andretti” – another tip as to the seriousness of the venture) still have to meet with the state Departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection before proceeding any further with their plans. However, Campbell said the principal, and well-connected, players concerned are quite keen on having DeFuniak take a place among some of the world’s top-class auto racing destinations.
“This is no fairy tale; this is real,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of hills to climb to make sure they get past DEP and DOT and some of those folks, but if they can they would like to get the consensus of the city to see if [the motorsports park idea] is a fit for the city of DeFuniak Springs.
“This right here would really be a major, major impact for our area.”
Campbell hammered home just how important such a development could be for the future of not just DeFuniak Springs but also of surrounding counties and indeed the entire region when he quoted the projected annual revenue of $250 million by 10 years out or so.
The prime location being eyed by investors at this time is the 1,400-acre property owned by Diane Pickett just south of Interstate 10, though initial reports say only about 800 acres are needed to achieve the full scope of operations planned for the park. Construction is estimated to cost somewhere around $80 million, but by year two the facility should be turning a profit if all goes according to projections done in the past weeks and months.
The mayor said he would be able to discuss all the pertinent details related to the project after the meeting between the state agencies in two weeks time, but secrecy has to be maintained for now, as Okaloosa County is likely gunning for the nascent motorsports park too.
“[Okaloosa County] wants this real bad,” Campbell said. “They could take this from us quite easily if we let them.”
Campbell said the main advantage for such a large operation to set up shop in DeFuniak Springs is because of the comparative lack of red tape when operating inside city limits as opposed to in unincorporated areas of Walton County, which have stricter qualifications for land use and comprehensive plan applicability. Elsewhere in the county, construction on a related high-end luxury and exotic sports car dealership featuring marques like Aston Martin, Ferrari and Lamborghini, is soon set to begin somewhere on U.S. 98, and Campbell said locating a major racetrack nearby is in the interests of this business too. Projected revenues and long-term economic impacts from that auto mall-style dealership (the only one of its kind between Atlanta and Orlando) are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the mayor said, further lending support for a motorsports park in the Gulf Coast area.
The mayor, along with two members of the motorsports park team, visited Barber Motorsports Park, located just outside Birmingham, Ala., last Thursday, so that he could get a better idea of what a comparably expansive racing facility would look like if indeed one is built here. The 830-acre complex, which hosted a test day for professional motorcycle racers and about 1,000 support crew members at the time of the visit and is, among other things, the home of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, left a favorable impression on Campbell. Considering the nearly $30 million economic impact that one race has on the Birmingham area, Campbell conveyed his hope that residents and government officials alike would embrace the idea for DeFuniak Springs.
He got a round of applause from the City Hall audience at the end of his speech.
Despite all the excitement of the latter parts of the meeting, the Council first had to deal with some old business related to a compensation plan for Robert McKnight, the city’s de facto grant writer who has been working on a pro bono basis since last year. McKnight came to the meeting to submit his proposed contract for the board to look over, but City Attorney Clayton Adkinson advised the Council that they would be getting “the cart ahead of the horse” if McKnight was allowed to make the presentation.
At the time McKnight began working to secure grants for the city, he agreed to do so on a volunteer basis, with the Council agreeing in recent months to look at its finances and potentially hire him as the official staff grant writer. However, Adkinson said Preble-Rish, Inc., the city’s engineering consultation firm, would also have to be allowed to submit a proposal since the Council had initially decided on entering into negotiations between Preble-Rish and McKnight both as the two have worked together to get grants for the city. A year ago the final decision as to who to hire for the job was left open to the Council, but there was, as yet, no word on the matter as the board returned a 1-3 vote against moving forward with the process and setting a date for negotiations.
Several people spoke on the issue, with resident J.B. Hillard bringing up the example of the 60-ish volunteer committee members who do not ask for compensation for their work.
“The members [put in] a lot of effort, many, many hours, and they ask for no compensation whatsoever,” he said. “…I think it’s an unfair situation to all the other committee members who are working for nothing, to be considering a volunteer who has talked himself into the position he’s in now.”
The mayor spoke in favor of the Council working on setting a date to hold negotiations, as he felt McKnight has ably proven himself a servant to the community by securing several grants between $50,000 and $500,000 over the course of the last year.
“We need these grants, and this is not something…that just anybody can do,” Campbell said. “I think we need to compensate [grant writers], I think we need to come up with a game plan, and I think we need we need to do it expeditiously.”
Councilman Ron Kelley, who voted against the motion by Councilman Mac Carpenter (the lone “aye” vote) said this decision was “all a question of money.” Kelley said the Council should wait until it has a better idea of the kind of funds it will have available in the coming year, especially after recently passing a tight budget.
“We have some very severe needs when it comes to infrastructure,” he said. “We are behind the eight ball there, and we’re kind of scrambling to find out how we’re going to do all that.
“I’m concerned that we might overextend ourselves and promise that we can do a thing that we don’t have funding to do. Sometimes you are not able to do everything you’d like to do when you’d like to do it.”
On the related matter of competitive grant compensation, the Council voted 4-0 to go ahead with the Economic Development Committee’s recommendation to hire professional grant administration to handle a recently approved $20,000 Competitive Florida grant. In accordance with city purchasing policy, anything between $10,000 and $20,000 has to be formally bid upon, and the city will accept three bids for the proposal of administering the grant.
As for McKnight, he opined that the city’s policies were perhaps insufficient guides in times like this, saying that he interpreted the $7,900 for grant-writing services in the FY2016 budget as the Council’s “signal” that it wanted to hire a grant writer. McKnight said he doesn’t expect compensation, or even gratuity, for the work he’s already done, but though he is happy to work with the city, he will not be able to work on a pro bono basis much longer. Getting some of the “gobs of money” available through the RESTORE Act funds soon to be allocated to eight northwest Florida counties, of which Walton is one, for DeFuniak Springs will occupy a good deal of time and energy.
He said investing in a grant writer is a small price to pay for the prospect of such a large positive economic impact a portion of $1.5 billion, which the RESTORE Act reserves for economic development in Florida’s Gulf Coast counties, could mean for the city of DeFuniak Springs.
“I’m willing to work with you within the boundaries of the law and within this issue, but I think political will is very important here,” McKnight said. “Because the alternative is that somebody else down the road is going to get that money.”
A motorsports facility capable of hosting IndyCar, Formula 1 and NASCAR events may be in DeFuniak Springs’ near future.
While race fans recognize the prestige associated with those international elite-level motorsports organizations, a straightforward explanation is in order for those who aren’t fans of auto racing. In short, this development could mean projected revenues of $50 million and upward of 500 jobs in every sector from research to hospitality and retail, all to be added to the local economy and all, perhaps, sooner rather than later.
Mayor Bob Campbell laid out some of the broad strokes of the project to the City Council and the audience gathered for the Oct. 26 meeting. Though enthusiastic, Campbell couldn’t get too specific yet, as the team of investors (one of them with the surname “Andretti” – another tip as to the seriousness of the venture) still have to meet with the state Departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection before proceeding any further with their plans. However, Campbell said the principal, and well-connected, players concerned are quite keen on having DeFuniak take a place among some of the world’s top-class auto racing destinations.
“This is no fairy tale; this is real,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of hills to climb to make sure they get past DEP and DOT and some of those folks, but if they can they would like to get the consensus of the city to see if [the motorsports park idea] is a fit for the city of DeFuniak Springs.
“This right here would really be a major, major impact for our area.”
Campbell hammered home just how important such a development could be for the future of not just DeFuniak Springs but also of surrounding counties and indeed the entire region when he quoted the projected annual revenue of $250 million by 10 years out or so.
The prime location being eyed by investors at this time is the 1,400-acre property owned by Diane Pickett just south of Interstate 10, though initial reports say only about 800 acres are needed to achieve the full scope of operations planned for the park. Construction is estimated to cost somewhere around $80 million, but by year two the facility should be turning a profit if all goes according to projections done in the past weeks and months.
The mayor said he would be able to discuss all the pertinent details related to the project after the meeting between the state agencies in two weeks time, but secrecy has to be maintained for now, as Okaloosa County is likely gunning for the nascent motorsports park too.
“[Okaloosa County] wants this real bad,” Campbell said. “They could take this from us quite easily if we let them.”
Campbell said the main advantage for such a large operation to set up shop in DeFuniak Springs is because of the comparative lack of red tape when operating inside city limits as opposed to in unincorporated areas of Walton County, which have stricter qualifications for land use and comprehensive plan applicability. Elsewhere in the county, construction on a related high-end luxury and exotic sports car dealership featuring marques like Aston Martin, Ferrari and Lamborghini, is soon set to begin somewhere on U.S. 98, and Campbell said locating a major racetrack nearby is in the interests of this business too. Projected revenues and long-term economic impacts from that auto mall-style dealership (the only one of its kind between Atlanta and Orlando) are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the mayor said, further lending support for a motorsports park in the Gulf Coast area.
The mayor, along with two members of the motorsports park team, visited Barber Motorsports Park, located just outside Birmingham, Ala., last Thursday, so that he could get a better idea of what a comparably expansive racing facility would look like if indeed one is built here. The 830-acre complex, which hosted a test day for professional motorcycle racers and about 1,000 support crew members at the time of the visit and is, among other things, the home of the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, left a favorable impression on Campbell. Considering the nearly $30 million economic impact that one race has on the Birmingham area, Campbell conveyed his hope that residents and government officials alike would embrace the idea for DeFuniak Springs.
He got a round of applause from the City Hall audience at the end of his speech.
Despite all the excitement of the latter parts of the meeting, the Council first had to deal with some old business related to a compensation plan for Robert McKnight, the city’s de facto grant writer who has been working on a pro bono basis since last year. McKnight came to the meeting to submit his proposed contract for the board to look over, but City Attorney Clayton Adkinson advised the Council that they would be getting “the cart ahead of the horse” if McKnight was allowed to make the presentation.
At the time McKnight began working to secure grants for the city, he agreed to do so on a volunteer basis, with the Council agreeing in recent months to look at its finances and potentially hire him as the official staff grant writer. However, Adkinson said Preble-Rish, Inc., the city’s engineering consultation firm, would also have to be allowed to submit a proposal since the Council had initially decided on entering into negotiations between Preble-Rish and McKnight both as the two have worked together to get grants for the city. A year ago the final decision as to who to hire for the job was left open to the Council, but there was, as yet, no word on the matter as the board returned a 1-3 vote against moving forward with the process and setting a date for negotiations.
Several people spoke on the issue, with resident J.B. Hillard bringing up the example of the 60-ish volunteer committee members who do not ask for compensation for their work.
“The members [put in] a lot of effort, many, many hours, and they ask for no compensation whatsoever,” he said. “…I think it’s an unfair situation to all the other committee members who are working for nothing, to be considering a volunteer who has talked himself into the position he’s in now.”
The mayor spoke in favor of the Council working on setting a date to hold negotiations, as he felt McKnight has ably proven himself a servant to the community by securing several grants between $50,000 and $500,000 over the course of the last year.
“We need these grants, and this is not something…that just anybody can do,” Campbell said. “I think we need to compensate [grant writers], I think we need to come up with a game plan, and I think we need we need to do it expeditiously.”
Councilman Ron Kelley, who voted against the motion by Councilman Mac Carpenter (the lone “aye” vote) said this decision was “all a question of money.” Kelley said the Council should wait until it has a better idea of the kind of funds it will have available in the coming year, especially after recently passing a tight budget.
“We have some very severe needs when it comes to infrastructure,” he said. “We are behind the eight ball there, and we’re kind of scrambling to find out how we’re going to do all that.
“I’m concerned that we might overextend ourselves and promise that we can do a thing that we don’t have funding to do. Sometimes you are not able to do everything you’d like to do when you’d like to do it.”
On the related matter of competitive grant compensation, the Council voted 4-0 to go ahead with the Economic Development Committee’s recommendation to hire professional grant administration to handle a recently approved $20,000 Competitive Florida grant. In accordance with city purchasing policy, anything between $10,000 and $20,000 has to be formally bid upon, and the city will accept three bids for the proposal of administering the grant.
As for McKnight, he opined that the city’s policies were perhaps insufficient guides in times like this, saying that he interpreted the $7,900 for grant-writing services in the FY2016 budget as the Council’s “signal” that it wanted to hire a grant writer. McKnight said he doesn’t expect compensation, or even gratuity, for the work he’s already done, but though he is happy to work with the city, he will not be able to work on a pro bono basis much longer. Getting some of the “gobs of money” available through the RESTORE Act funds soon to be allocated to eight northwest Florida counties, of which Walton is one, for DeFuniak Springs will occupy a good deal of time and energy.
He said investing in a grant writer is a small price to pay for the prospect of such a large positive economic impact a portion of $1.5 billion, which the RESTORE Act reserves for economic development in Florida’s Gulf Coast counties, could mean for the city of DeFuniak Springs.
“I’m willing to work with you within the boundaries of the law and within this issue, but I think political will is very important here,” McKnight said. “Because the alternative is that somebody else down the road is going to get that money.”