Opening Condit Road fields for public use could ultimately cost
the city tournaments
Morgan Hill – Plans to open the Condit Road soccer complex to more local youth likely will spell the end of the city’s relationship with the California Youth Soccer Association.
“We need to make the fields multi-use and a shared facility,” Councilman Steve Tate said of the 12 soccer fields that are mostly closed to Morgan Hill residents. “Keeping [the CYSA] long-term is wishful thinking, but we should try.”
Council members say they they’re not giving up on outdoor sports as an economic engine, only recognizing that pumping public money into the Condit Road complex is not the way to achieve that goal.
“We bought that land for community recreation needs,” City Manager Ed Tewes said. “We recognize we can’t achieve that objective [immediately], and in the interim, the CYSA is welcome to use it.”
The city does hope to sign the CYSA to a contract that will keep soccer tournaments in town through 2009, but officials also will move forward with plans that they realize could hasten the group’s exit.
The city will use $2.5 million in redevelopment funds to improve parking at the facility and build concession stands. One or two of the existing 11 fields will be converted to artificial turf so local teams can use them during the week and on weekends when the CYSA is not in town. The grass fields are closed during the week to keep them in good repair.
Those changes are positive in the eyes of the CYSA, but the city’s plan also calls for converting half the soccer fields into baseball fields. That arrangement won’t be good enough to keep CYSA in town or attract other regional sports groups to the city.
“What we need is more fields and more fields and more fields,” CYSA general manager Frank Marotto said. “We are looking for assurances that the number of fields will stay intact or even increase.”
The CYSA hosts about 40 tournaments a year in Morgan Hill. It’s contract with the city expires at the end of the year and Marotto said the CYSA wants to ink a long-term deal, in Morgan Hill or elsewhere, to give the organization more stability.
The city’s decision has upset the local business community, particularly hotel and restaurant owners who say they depend on the CYSA tournaments for their livelihood.
David Dworkin, manager of the Holiday Inn Express has said that the CYSA feeds more than $4 million annually into the local economy. He said there are 20 weekends a year when every hotel room in town is filled by players, coaches, parents and spectators. More tournaments in a variety of sports, he said, would equal more opportunity for business growth and contribute more tax dollars to the city’s coffers.
Dworkin leads a group of local businesses that has been pushing the city to add an additional 23 acres of land to the 38-acre site and construct a complex with turf, seating and lights, and fields for soccer, baseball, softball, football and lacrosse.Â
There’s no room in the city budget for such a project that would cost more than $10 million in addition to the cost of the land. The city spent $7.65 million for the 38 acres in July 2001. The CYSA has hosted tournaments there since 1993.
