Earlier this fall, when contemplating the fate of the former Dodgertown Golf Club property, Vero Beach City Council members rejected a $2.4 million offer from the county and a $2.43 million bid from a developer.
Instead, they chose a third option: They voted to keep the land.
Now, City Councilman Val Zudans has floated a fourth option – one he believes will allow proposed commercial development to proceed while also satisfying Major League Baseball, which won’t agree to take over Historic Dodgertown’s operations unless the county guarantees enough parking for big-crowd events – which ownership of the golf club property would provide.
“I’d like to explore getting the city, county and the developer together and come up with a more comprehensive solution that satisfies everyone,” Zudans said. “I see the value in Major League Baseball coming to Vero Beach and the impact it can have on the local economy, and the city doesn’t want to mess that up.
“But there’s a way to accommodate those needs, using only part of the golf-course property plus the two city-owned lots on the north side of Aviation Boulevard,” he continued. “We also might be able to use some of the fields on airport property and run shuttles back and forth to Historic Dodgertown.
“That would still allow for the sale and development of the golf-course property,” he added. “So the county would get everything it needs to satisfy the parking requirement on their term sheet with Major League Baseball, and the city gets the tax revenues it needs.
“It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Well, almost everyone: Based on the scene at its Oct. 2 meeting, when it spent four hours discussing the sale of the golf-course property, the council can expect strong opposition from the Keep Vero Vero crowd that wants to preserve the 35-acre parcel as open space.
Also, county officials are still pushing to purchase the land so they can be absolutely sure of meeting the aforementioned parking demands in their handshake agreement with Major League Baseball, which, if the deal is finalized, would sign a long-term lease with the county and succeed former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley in running the iconic sports complex.
“One of the requirements of the deal with Major League Baseball is that the county must provide 2,000 parking spaces for the big Holman Stadium events, so we’ll need access to that property,” County Administrator Jason Brown said.
“We’re OK if the city wants to hold onto it, because we have a parking agreement with them to use the land when we need it,” he added. “Our request is that the city doesn’t sell the property to a third party.”
However, Zudans said he checked with City Manager Jim O’Connor and was told the parking agreement, which requires no payment from the county, has no termination date.
“As I understand it, the agreement terminates if the city finds a better use for the property,” Zudans said. “When the city bought the property, we weren’t using it for anything, so we let the county use it when it needed to. But there’s no lease.”
O’Connor said the developer – a partnership between Lakeland-based builder Mark Hulbert and Vero Beach resident Terry Borcheller – still is interested in purchasing the parcel and building an urban market that would include a hotel, restaurants and office space, all in a park-like setting in which more than 40 percent of the property would be green space.
Zudans said his fourth-option proposal would allow the city to sell the land to Hulbert and Borcheller, as long as they agreed in writing to provide 500 parking spaces when Major League Baseball needs them.
The developers already have said publicly they would provide the overflow parking sought by Major League Baseball and, at the council’s request, agreed to remove the residential construction in their initial plans.
Zudans’ proposal includes: the city and/or developer signing an agreement to allow the county to use up to 500 spaces on the golf-course property to accommodate overflow parking for big-crowd events at Historic Dodgertown; and the county signing a long-term lease with the city to use the two parking lots on the north side of Aviation Boulevard and, when needed, the fields on the Vero Beach Regional Airport property with shuttle service to Historic Dodgertown.
Brown said he hoped to present to the County Commission a finalized lease agreement with Major League Baseball this month.
O’Connor said negotiating a parking deal with the county could involve the city demanding a share of the county’s tourism and hotel tax revenues.