The City of Clinton is poised to take an “if you build it, they will come” approach to having a developer put a massive baseball-driven complex on 552 acres that the city was gifted by the State of South Carolina.
Council gave 1st reading approval last night to an ordinance that will sell Tracts B & C of the Whitten Center property - on the Clinton side of I-26 - to a developer that will install 13 turf-style baseball fields to attract travel baseball teams and leagues from throughout the country to tournament.
Youth baseball, high school and collegiate baseball can be played on these fields, the council was told, and about 300,000 visitors a year could attend tournaments there.
FINAL ACTION may be this Monday night -- see attached agenda.
Adjacent to the complex will be 208 homes in the $450,000 - $475,000 range and at least 3 hotels. Once that ball gets rolling, developers are sure brand-name restaurants and shops will want to be part of the development, patterned after Lake Point in Georgia.
Monday night’s called meeting was the 1st of 2 required public votes on the sale-ordinance; no public comments time was allotted at this called meeting.
These developers will buy the land for $2,500 per acre. A contract specifies 15 months for the development to be substantially begin - but negotiations may include a 24-month option, if needed, because of the need for permits.
Developers will not rely on Old Colony Road for primary access to the baseball complex. But the narrow road could be used for preliminary engineering and site work. An area off the road is being clear-cut at the present time, as part of the trees “thinning” plan for the site.
State regulators and the Army Corps of Engineers will be called on to identify streams running through this property, wetlands, and potentially a cemetery. Plus, engineers will need time to design the project.
The contract could be ready for the city council to sign as soon as next week.
LakePoint Sports in Emerson, Georgia here.
