From Mayor Latham: An update on the NBV Community Park at TIES

Neighbors,

With new developments on a possible partnership with the Argentine Football Association, and many promising developments around the forthcoming NBV Community Park at TIES, I want to provide a comprehensive update of what we’re working on for the park.

First, a note of caution: this is a comprehensive review. If you’re pressed for time, I will highlight some things you can read. But if you want the background and would like to form an educated opinion, it would be helpful to take some time and read this full message.

The progress on our NBV Community Park to date has been inspiring. This all started two years ago with the concept of turning the decrepit green spaces and playing areas around Treasure Island Elementary into a community resource for our kids and our community. Today, we have a timeline and a clear path towards making that dream a reality.

After a long process of negotiating the mutual use deal with the school system, the playing field is now open to residents. In addition, a framework has been ironed out for NBV to invest in the property for the good of the community. The project would include, in general, a walking trail around the entire dimension of the school, extensive landscaping and drainage improvements, a complete rebuild of the dilapidated tennis courts into multi-purpose playing courts, and potentially an improved multi-purpose field.

The Commission has retained a firm to plan, design, and permit the work, and a schedule has been determined. The initial cost for the entire project as described above has been estimated at $3-4 million, with funds set to be allocated from approved parks enhancement bond funds. We are under no obligation to spend that or any amount – it will be determined as we analyze and advance on the project.

As always, I am very sensitive to spending taxpayer money. I have pledged to do all I can to find alternative ways to pay for the upgrades at the NBV Community Park at TIES. To date, I have advanced on securing funding for three key areas:

1. Through our hard-working School Board Rep Lucia Baez-Geller, the school board has agreed to our requests to invest funds to upgrade the street-facing façade of the school, including more attractive fencing and upgrades to the sidewalk.
2. I am working through our staff with the U.S. Soccer Foundation on funding to pay for upgrades to the courts. As a side note, these courts may look OK from your condo several stories up, but the foundations are heavily degraded and they require significant work to be repaired. We are working on a grant which would provide for a complete rebuild.
3. I have been in contact with several potential partners, including but not limited to the Argentine Football Association, on ideas which would provide funds to regrade and improve the large playing field, into a multi-use community space that could be used for children’s sports and recreation as well as community gatherings and general recreation.

In particular, the field upgrade partnership has been largely misunderstood in light of media coverage coming from Argentina, and our local social media whirlwind. Note that, like the courts, this field may look alright from a tenth-floor balcony, but the reality is that it is very uneven, and drainage is extremely poor. 

I’m relatively certain that if we invest heavily at TIES and leave the field as-is, there will quickly be community complaints about the state of the areas, most of which essentially turns into an unusable swamp in the rainy season. 

As an important aside, and because of that water situation, this project would also need to account for stormwater management so we can use the field space effectively. That is being addressed in the planning of the project. However, we have to keep in mind that this space belongs to the school system. We cannot simply turn it into a water reservoir – we are tasked with making improvements to benefit the school kids and the community – goals that are essentially one and the same.  

Another clarification – there’s not, nor was there ever going to be, a “stadium” built. It wouldn’t fit, wouldn’t be approved, and is generally not at all a fit for our community – which is why no one has proposed it. So everyone can rest easy on that one.

Back to the field upgrade – it’s one of several proposed elements to the upgrade, and the one designers recommend should be done first, for efficiency reasons. On the other hand, I have suggested that the field, though a vital upgrade, be lower on the list of priorities after the trail, the courts, and landscaping and drainage. This is all TBD.

However, the economics and dynamics change if we can get someone else to pay for the field. So I started exploring potential opportunities there as well.

One of the several institutions I have been in contact with about this, as is known, is the Argentine Football Association. 

Here, I want to preface the discussion. I’ve been hesitant to share too much so far simply because these interactions have been very preliminary. I don’t have a detailed proposal to share, so this involves a lot of variables. While I am always working to make things happen, I like to announce things when they are actual, tangible, and concrete possibilities, not just concepts. At that point, I would have a plan I can bring to the public and the Commission to discuss and work on.

On the field partnership with the AFA or anyone else, we’re not there yet. But soccer being what it is in Argentina, this preliminary information was shared with the press, many things were embellished and lost in translation, and this caused confusion here in NBV.

So I want to describe clearly, even if prematurely, the concept I have been initially discussing with the Argentine Football Federation – though not exclusively with them.

1. The first element is the field. A partnership would involve their investment in improving the field, fixing the drainage issues, lighting as necessary, etc., into a state-of-the-art multi-purpose field.I don’t know yet whether it would be grass or turf – that depends on having a proposal and design to look at and review by the public and the Commission.

In principle, and again we have only briefly exchanged conceptual ideas—in exchange for paying for the field, the Argentine Football Association would also be able to use it at certain times throughout the year. This would not be frequent, certainly not every day, but having someone else pay for something instead of taxpayers is a reality. Again, I don’t have details of a usage agreement because that would need to be negotiated and go through the public and Commission vetting and approval process. We don’t have those details yet to analyze.

2. Additional to the field, I have pointed several organizations, including the AFA, to our dilapidated and now unusable public works building and lot on Galleon Street. We will need to do something there sooner or later, and currently, we have no plans or budget to deal with it. A public-private partnership could be a solution. Currently, the lot holds a building that is falling down, parking for dump trucks, and a sewer pump station that needs to be upgraded and undergrounded.

 I think it would be nice to have a community center, a police station and central command, and other community amenities in this area. In initial discussions, the Argentine Football Association has said they are interested in partnering to build us such a building, for the use of the community, with additional spaces for their use as a training center for their national team and potentially a place for their international players — Leo Messi, Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria and the like for those of you who are fans – could use as a dorm on the occasions (a few times a year) that they wish to get the team together in Miami.

Again this is preliminary. I can’t explain yet what a new building on the public works lot would look like or exactly what it could be used for because we don’t have a proposal to look at yet.

3. There could be an element of parks and rec programming and instruction for NBV kids in affiliation with AFA.

So that’s where we are. Due to the level of interest in the project, I have invited the Argentine Football Association to visit NBV and the site later this week to work out more details on the time line and scope of their potential proposal.

Whatever they eventually propose – if anything – it will begin a public and Commission feedback process to agree on whether the project is in the public interest. That process would include addressing any concerns about transparency or sources of funding.

To summarize, this process could result in a new playing field for the school and community, a community center, a police station, and recreation programming with an affiliation with a globally recognized sporting brand, while reserving taxpayer money. 

That’s, of course, a dream, and although it’s far from becoming a reality, I am simply working on the first steps now. So it has been with many things we are achieving in NBV: it all has to start with a concept. I understand that not everyone will love every aspect of it, and that’s exactly what the public feedback process is meant to address.

The bottom line is: once any proposals are ready for the public and Commission, they will come before the public and the Commission, and you can provide feedback. We’ll decide together what to move forward on. I do ask that you reserve judgment until there’s actually something to judge.

Thanks as always for your confidence in the process. Together we are moving NBV forward.

Mayor Brent Latham