Sports complex facing obstacle
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on September 27, 2015 1:50 AM
As the city moves toward signing a 20-year lease agreement with the U.S. Air Force for the P-4 Initiative Multi-Sports Complex, there are several terms that could complicate the arrangement -- specifically what happens when the lease expires.
City Manager Scott Stevens said that according to the requirements of what would be a landmark arrangement between a local community and the federal government, when the lease expires, the land would have to be cleared.
"At the end of the 20 years, we're supposed to clean the property and make it all go away," Stevens said. "But the local folks here are saying, 'No, we probably still want that stuff.' There doesn't seem to be any ability to take that out. By doing that, at some point in the lease, we're supposed to start setting aside money to demo the work we've put in."
Officials announced in June that the lease would be signed by September, but the new target date is by the end of the year or possibly as early as October.
"This P-4 Initiative is meant to make it easier for the base and city to partner, or, bases nationwide and governmental entities to partner, for the benefit of both entities and the community," Stevens said. "The problem is there's no law that allows it, is what we've been told. The base here locally has been phenomenal. Pretty high levels in the Air Force have been phenomenal. But in the mechanics in between, they don't have a mechanism to do it."
Stevens said the city, in seeking this partnership for the Multi-Sports Complex, wanted the lease on the land to last much longer than 20 years, which is not allowed by the federal government.
"But 20 years is reasonable for this type of project, in that the life of an Astroturf field somebody would tell you is 10 years, it's probably more like 15," Stevens said. "So we're believing we're going to be putting in probably a 15-year investment in terms of the field, and then you have another big investment (with the demolition)."
During that time period, Stevens said, the city would likely be renegotiating the lease.
But even that is not a sure thing, he said.
"There is some caveat now that if the Air Force still has use for it, they have the ability to try to keep it, but that's not as simple as you and I deciding that's what we're going to do, because there's so many layers of bureaucracy between it."
Assistant City Manager Randy Guthrie, Dennis Goodson of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and two Air Force attorneys from San Antonio, Texas, met last week to discuss the terms of the lease.
"I will tell you, it's very much in favor of the landlord (the U.S. Air Force), which is fine," Stevens said. "At the end of the day, we're going to get there."
The problem is that the law as it is currently written does not allow room to create a more favorable lease -- or to avoid the complications of the demolition funds requirement.
"Their law is the Air Force has to be compensated for the land, and it has to be a fair lease, and if it's not fair, the Air Force gets the final say in things. I don't want to say it's one-sided, but when you read it, and it'll be out in October, we hope, it'll be a very one-sided looking lease in that the Air Force has a lot more authority in it than the city. It's their property, and in the current legislation that's what that allows, so I'm not throwing eggs or sour grapes."
Stevens said after last week's meeting with the Air Force attorneys, the city is getting to a place where the terms of the lease are more acceptable to the parties involved.
"It's not an Air Force issue of being difficult, it just takes a while to make the laws adjust," Stevens said.
Making the agreement more even would take more than simply pulling strings, he said.
And changing the mechanism by which such agreements are made would delay the project, he added.
"That's just what the attorneys were telling Randy (Guthrie) is that, 'There's just not any provision in the law for us to do what you're asking. We can run it up the chain and try to push it, but when we do that you're talking months of delay to get there,'" Stevens said. "We're to the point where we're a year behind where we'd like to be anyhow, quite frankly. We're to the point we're just trying to say, you know, OK, we give, we'll work on it."
Stevens said if the lease is signed as it currently reads, the city would continue to work with the Air Force after the lease signing to adjust current laws to where partnerships such as the P-4 Initiative are permissible and easier for both entities.
Current lease language also limits the number of days the city is allowed exclusive use of the property, Stevens said.
If that number is exceeded, there would be a charge.
"They might have started at 30 days, (but now) they're up to now 60 days. Some of that is trying to show the benefit to the Air Force and the benefit to us," Stevens said.
The goal now is to balance both parties' needs and benefit, he said.
The terms of exclusive days of use per year for both parties, as well as joint days and times of use throughout the year, are still being ironed out in the lease agreement.
"Another term in the lease is that if the city and the Air Force were to disagree, we could hire a mediator who can interpret it for us and try to bridge the gap," Stevens said. "But if the Air Force doesn't agree with the mediator's interpretation, the Air Force wins."
Stevens said the city is hoping to have a final version of the lease agreement ready to be presented to the city council and the public this fall.
"My hopeful timeline is we would have a lease signed with the Air Force in October," he said. "That's probably pretty hopeful, but that's what we're all pushing for when everybody left (from the meeting) and we're really trying to get that done. There's still a lot of reviews at the federal side that have to happen, but that's what we're hoping for. The base would probably tell you (we're aiming for) signing the lease by the end of the year. But I think we definitely think we're closer to it, and it ought to happen this year as opposed to 12 months from now."