San Marcos City Council Approves Purchase, Sale Agreement For Sportsplex

By Terra Rivers | Managing Editor 

Last week, the San Marcos City Council approved a purchase and sale agreement with Pursuant Ventures Development, LLC, to improve 30 acres with a multi-use Sportsplex facility.

The City of San Marcos is proposing to enter into a public-private partnership with San Marcos Baseball Investments, LLC, and Pursuant Ventures Development LLC for the purpose of designing, constructing and operating a state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor sports and entertainment complex intended to host national tournaments and showcase events that will attract visitors across the US.

The estimated price for the project is $19,875,383.51 including a 3 percent contingency fund; the city proposes funding it by bonded indebtedness intended to be paid from Hotel Occupancy Tax Collections and Lease Revenues.

Assistant City Manager, Steve Parker, gave brief details on the project Tuesday.

Parker said the site will be located “kind of” behind Cody’s Bistro on Centerpoint road; the project will have eight championship baseball fields that the City of San Marcos will become the owners of.

“Mr. Sibley will work with the city on the design over the next several months; we will start construction,” Parker said. “We will issue bonds to do that. But typically, a project like this is funded through property tax receipts. The great thing about this because it will generate so many hotel room nights, this is eligible to be paid through hotel-motel revenue.”

Parker said the training facility, which will include education, computer and study rooms for tutoring after school, will be available at no charge to local youth baseball associations Monday thru Thursday; several weekends will also be allocated to them.

According to last week’s agenda, the council has discussed the project in executive session over the last few months. 

Mayor Hughson clarified the developer will pay for all utilities and maintenance upkeep, but the city will be responsible for paying for utility usage on City Sponsored Uses that is “in excess of reasonable and customary usage.”

The developer, Tyler Sibley, said he doesn’t think there is a specific provision about who determines what reasonableness is with regard to the utility usage.

“I think it will be determined by what’s our historical use on a month to month basis,” Sibley said, “And if there’s an event that is a city-sponsored use as it’s defined in the lease and there is a correlating spike with the utilities that occur in a correlated fashion with that event. I think that’s what we’d have a discussion with down the road about what is reasonable and what is not.”

Mayor Hughson expressed concerns about two issues regarding the lease agreement.

Hughson said she was all right with the revenue split of 20 to 80 between the city of San Marcos and the developer, but she wanted to ensure the city was protected in the event the developer was no longer willing or able to manage the facility in the future.

Hughson also said she wanted to look at changing the language to give the City of San Marcos full authority over the name of the facility.

The council voted 7-0 to move into executive session at 10:18 PM in order to receive advice from the city attorney and answer questions about economic incentives for the project.  They returned at 10:50 PM.

Upon the return, the council voted on three amendments to the lease.

The first amendment changed the language to item nine in the lease giving the City of San Marcos full naming rights of the new Sportsplex.

The second granted the city protection in the event that the developer was no longer willing or able to manage the facility. The addition of sub-section G to section 12 would require the developer to provide the city with a calendar and list identifying any sports events, which have already been scheduled, so the city will be prepared for them.

Councilmember Melissa Derrick made a motion to “Amend the purchase and sale agreement to define the term Title Company as a title company doing business in San Marcos that is mutually agreeable to the seller and city.”

The proposed amendment would amend the following portion of section 2 of the lease agreement, which can be found on page seven of the purchase agreement.  

2. Definitions. All capitalized terms used in this Contract shall have the meanings described to them in this Section 2, or as otherwise provided herein.

“Title Company” means Corridor Title Company, having an address of 133 W. San Antonio Street, Suite 100, San Marcos, Texas 78666, Attention: Cindy Carroll, with a phone number of 512-392-8910, and an email of cindy@corridortitleco.com, or other representative as may be designated in writing by Corridor Title Company.

The amendments #1, #2 and #3 passed 7 to 0. The purchase and lease agreements passed as amended 7 to 0.