INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The deadline has come and gone for a local businessman to deposit $1.2 million to secure a lease at the Vero Beach Sports Village, according to county officials.
Marlin “Soapy” Immell had until the close of business Thursday, July 21, to transfer $1.2 million into a county-held escrow account. As of Friday afternoon, no funds had been deposited.
“He didn’t make it,” County Administrator Joe Baird said Friday.
County Attorney Alan Polackwich confirmed Thursday that, despite other reports in the local media, Thursday was the drop-dead deadline for Immell to make the deposit.
“I’m disappointed,” said Minor League Baseball President Pat O’Conner of the situation. “I’m not angry.”
He added that he isn’t sure who he is more disappointed for – Minor League Baseball or Immell.
“He’s a fine gentleman,” O’Conner said of Immell. “He’s had some complications.”
O’Conner said Immell has told him what those complications have been that have kept him from being able to transfer the $1.2 million to the county. However, O’Conner said it would have to be up to Immell to speak publicly about those complications.
Attempts to reach Immell Friday were unsuccessful.
O’Conner said that if Immell is able to work through those complications and meet the county’s requirements, he would be willing to reconsider transferring Minor League Baseball’s lease to Immell.
“It’s not dead beyond resurrection,” O’Conner said.
In the meantime, O’Conner said he is now considering no fewer than three other potential partners for the Vero Beach Sports Village, whom he has kept at arm’s length out of deference to the deal he had been working on with Immell.
“I’m not going to just sit and wait,” O’Conner said. “I can’t afford to wait.”
O’Conner said the other potential partners include someone who is interested in taking up Immell’s deal and another who wants to form a joint venture with Minor League Baseball.
Because he has kept the other partners at bay, O’Conner said he does not yet know if any of them want the cloverleaf of youth ball fields Minor League Baseball has been trying to get the county to build.
He said he hoped to have a better sense of the need for the fields by July 29 deadline he gave the county to get moving on the fields.
“I’m more inclined to see them built rather than not built,” O’Conner said, so long as Minor League Baseball remains the lease holder.
County officials have said they are leery of committing to $2.6 million worth of ball field construction if a new tenant has no interest or need for the fields.
O’Conner said he hasn’t begun pushing for the fields until recently because they have already missed the timing needed to have them done for holiday tournaments this year. Now, O’Conner is hoping to have the fields in place in time for spring training – provided a new partner might want the fields.
