Officials from the Town of Sumrall have met with local tennis players to draw up plans for new courts and an additional soccer field as part of the Sumrall Sports Complex off of Mississippi 42.
The endeavor is made possible by the recent purchase by the town of approximately 20 acres of land that sits behind the current soccer field at the complex.
“I’m excited; we’re making progress,” Mayor Heath Sumrall said. “The tennis people are happy because they want to see it done.”
Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall had previously helped secure funding for work at the Sumrall Sports Complex under two initiatives: $500,000 through the BP Settlement Bill and $2 million from Senate Bill 3065.
The $500,000 is part of $70 million distributed statewide as part of a BP settlement.
That bill – formally known as Senate Bill 2002 – was the result of Mississippi’s lawsuit against the oil giant for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in which 210 million gallons of oil were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
Under Senate Bill 3065, Sumrall received $2 million for its recreational facilities, part of $207 million in state-issued bonds for several projects and educational institutions around the state.
“The $2 million, when it came into the picture, it was allowed in the wording that we could use that to purchase the remaining land (at the sports complex),” Sumrall said. “There’s a lot of dirt work that’s going to have be done on it, because it's just mostly hills and valleys.
“We'll have to do a lot of grading work, and there’s some areas that are probably going to be classified as wetlands that we’re going to have to avoid. But overall, once we get the topography figured out on that, we’re going to get to work.”
An exact cost for the project has yet to be determined.
“I know we’re going to have to put turn lanes out there on Highway 42, and that’s going to absorb some of the money we’ve got for it because (the Mississippi Department of Transportation) requires that,” Sumrall said.
A committee will now work to make decisions going forward regarding the tennis and soccer site.
See related story, "Soccer field close to finish," for more information on the progress at the Sumrall Sports Complex.
