Grenada’s multi-million dollar sports complex is taking shape as officials hope the state-of-the-art baseball and softball facility on Papermill Road will be a home run for the city.
Project Director Ramey Ford has been providing updates to the city council throughout the summer and until recently dry weather has been ideal for accomplishing a lot of work to the $6 million facility.
“We’re very much on track,” Ford recently told the City Council. “It’s moving along very well. If you haven’t been in a while, you need to go because it really, really is starting to shape up and it looks very first class.”
In addition to synthetic turf being installed on the six new fields, which will include covered sitting areas, work on lighting, the concessions area, restrooms and backstops have been ongoing. Ford said equipment is also being added in various areas of the complex.
The Grenada City Council unanimously agreed to a three-year sponsorship agreement with Ford during the July meeting, allowing him to begin selling various complex sponsorships. He said initial support started off strong.
“It’s been really good,” Ford said. “We’ve sold all of the scoreboard sponsorships, we’ve sold three of the field sponsorships, we’ve sold two of the field signs and today, Kirk Auto Group did the complex sponsorship and the naming of a field. The total of all that so far is close to $80,000 in the last two weeks. A lot of that is because some of these are paid out over a three-year period, so that $80,000 isn’t coming right now. About 70 percent of it is and the other will bill over the next two years.”
In addition to Kirk Auto Group, Willis Engineering and the Grenada Tourism Commission have purchased field naming sponsorships. Frontier Fence Co., Hampton Inn & Suites, Modine, Guaranty Bank, EMI Staffing and Double S, Inc., will serve as the sponsors for the six scoreboards, while Weir Boerner Allin Architecture and Grassland, Inc., have purchased field signs.
In addition to selling the remaining sponsorships, Ford is currently working on the complex’s operational strategy.
“I have talked and worked with Ms. (Mary) Brown (city attorney),” he said at the July 11 meeting. “I’m working on a concession agreement with a group, a tournament director agreement with a group and a turf maintenance for the outfields. I found a great guy that is from Winona, who had been doing turf management at Wrigley Field, so I think he’s going to put in a proposal to take care of the turf and the outfields, and then I talked to a local group today for the common area maintenance. There’s about 8.2 acres that is going to need to be mowed, not fertilized and maintained like the turf – just mowed, weed eated, some pine straw, that kind of stuff, so I’ll be getting a quote from them.”
Ford added that the strategy is complex.
“Operationally, pulling all of those pieces together has been tough and will be, but once we get that and mold that group together, we’ll be ready,” Ford concluded.
The new complex is visible from Interstate 55. In 2018, Grenada citizens voted on a referendum to levy additional sales tax on hotels-motels, restaurants and bars. The tax was a total of two percent tax on food and alcohol at restaurants inside the city and a three percent total tax on motels.
Once completed, Grenada’s sports complex, which will be called Kirk Auto Group Sports Complex, will put the city in the league to bid on tournaments, which have proven to generate substantial tax dollars to other Mississippi cities. A Grand Opening is scheduled for March 2023.
If you are interested in sponsoring a field or purchasing a field sign, contact Ramey Ford at (601) 209-8361.
