The announcement of a half-million-dollar agreement for naming rights to the city of Henderson’s new athletic complex last week shores up most of the funding for the $18.628 million facility.
The city announced at the Henderson City Commission meeting on July 23 that an agreement with Deaconess Henderson Hospital had been reached to to name the athletic complex “Deaconess Henderson Sports Park.”
As part of the deal, the hospital will pay the city $100,000 annually for each of the next five years, for a total of $500,000, according to city documents. The naming rights fill a line-item hole that had been earmarked for $500,000.
Another revenue line item, earmarked at $500,000, is for additional naming rights to four baseball fields, three multipurpose fields, a concession stand and parking lots. City Manager Buzzy Newman said that former Mayor Steve Austin headed up the effort and those agreements have been secured but not announced.
Additionally, a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant for $200,000 is another chunk of money that will help pay for the project.
In 2022, the base bid for the complex came in at $10.487 million. Since then, new additions have been added to the project and approved by the Henderson City Commission, pushing the price north of $18 million.
Throughout the length of the construction, Assistant City Manager Dylan Ward has come to the commission to ask for approval to make additions to the complex.
The commission has always agreed. On more than one occasion, commissioners have made the statement that the city has one shot at doing this right, and they want to make a top-notch complex that young, local athletes deserve and that will make residents proud.
It’s not come without some swipes from residents—mostly online—at the increasing price tag.
Mayor Brad Staton said, though, he’s not received calls about the athletic complex’s price and has only seen complaints on social media. He said the increased price tag will not mean that taxes are raised for the project.
“We should not have to raise taxes to pay for the sports complex,” he said.
Rising reserve funds over the past few years have given some freedom to approve additions, he said. With a reserve fund that sits at about $19 million, the city will pull from that to pay for the bonding it issued previously for the athletic complex.
According to Newman and other city officials who’ve worked on the project, the city’s intention was to accept a base bid for the nuts and bolts of the project and then add improvements as the project moved along.
Newman maintains that putting the entire package together and bidding it as a whole would have returned such an exorbitantly high bid—say $25 million—that the project would have been dead in the water from the beginning.
Newman said contractors inflate prices for pieces of a project it has to farm out to subcontractors in order to still earn some money on it. By cutting those additions out of an original bid, the city was able to put out bids to individual contractors for additions to the athletic complex, Newman said, thus cutting out the middleman and keeping the total price 25-30% lower than if it had all been bid in one big chunk.
The Hendersonian sat down with Newman last week to pin down the additions that have occurred throughout the process and put prices to them.
The $10.487 million base bid included construction of four baseball/softball fields, one parking lot, one multipurpose field, one concession stand and one maintenance building, Newman said.
One big change was placing artificial turf on both the infields and outfields of all four baseball/softball fields and one multipurpose field that were a part of the base bid. The artificial turf for those five fields costs $2.54 million, according to a city document.
The base bid also included only one gravel parking lot, but a change approved by the commission will allow for an additional parking lot and for both to be paved. The addition of the second lot comes in at $937,180 and paving for both is $1 million, according to a city document.
Also, lighting for the four baseball/softball fields and one multipurpose field was added, with an original budget of $1.125 million. Henderson County Fiscal Court has agreed to pay for the lighting, which after bids came back, was for $1.053 million.
Additionally, the commission approved two more multipurpose grass fields for $360,946, said the city document.
There’s also funding for a second concession stand, which is estimated to be $450,000, and contingency fees set aside for a large sign along the Audubon Parkway, a water fountain in the pond for stormwater runoff that will keep algae under control and parking lot striping for $400,000, Newman said.
All this, Newman said, is “how we’re up to $18 million and change.”
Commissioners and city staff have maintained throughout the process that they have “one chance to do it, so let’s do it right,” Newman said.
The funding breakdown for the $18.628 million dollar project includes:
- $15.5 million from bonding proceeds
- $500,000 naming rights proceeds from Deaconess
- $500,000 naming rights for other pieces of the park, including individual fields
- $200,000 Land and Water Conservation Fund grant
- $1.053 million from Henderson County Fiscal Court to pay for lighting
The remaining balance is about $875,000. Newman said the city would probably dip into reserve funds to pay for this last piece.
