After a few weeks of meetings and brainstorming, the Lamar County Sports Complex Visionary Board has finalized a Mission, Goal and Objectives statement for a proposed centralized sports complex in the county.
The statement, which was accepted last week by the Lamar County Board of Supervisors, sets the visionary board’s mission as advising the supervisors on a master plan for a sports complex that will support the citizens of the county, as well as regional visitors. The goal of the visionary board – which is made up of a resident from each of the county’s districts in addition to county supervisors Phillip Carlisle and Steve Lampton – is to “utilize the results of the Lamar County Comprehensive Plan, input from the board of supervisors, Parks and Recreation Department, a sports/activities advisory team, other stakeholders, (Area Development Partnership), professional consultants and site visits, to facilitate the development of a sports complex master plan.”
To complete that goal, the statement lays out seven objectives:
• Determine sports and activities that will advance the planning of associated facilities/venues;
• Seek out the best location for a comprehensive sports complex;
• Select and engineering firm to serve as a partner in completing a feasibility study, anticipated project cost and conceptual images on the primary land space;
• Convene a sports/advisory team that will serve as experts of respective sports/activities to advise the visionary board regarding types and quantities of facilities and venues;
• Visit several quality sportsplexes that have documented success;
• Set timelines with approval of the board of supervisors for the completion of a feasibility study, anticipated project cost and conceptual images; and
• Identify recommended sources of funding to plan, design and construct the complex.
With the first two objectives still in discussion, the visionary board is now working to put together the sports/advisory team. Sidney Gonsoulin, who serves as chairman of the visionary board, said that team will be ideally made up of “sports aficionados” who are knowledgeable about certain areas of sports.
The visionary board is expected within the next two weeks to identify a time and place to meet with interested people to form the advisory team. That information will be posted at www.lamarcountyms.gov on the site’s Parks and Recreation section.
“You’ve got people who are fanatic about youth soccer, fanatic about pee-wee football, you’ve got fitness folks,” said Gonsoulin, who helped plan several facilities at the University of Southern Mississippi, including the parking garage, the Payne Center and Pride Field. “So we’re hoping to bring those people together, and we’re going to kind of separate them out – we’ll meet with the soccer group, we’ll meet with the football group, we’ll meet with the tennis group.
“And then hopefully out of that, we’ll have a leader who can be in that group as often as they want to put more information into our board.”
Although the main talking point for the location of the sportsplex has been a 108-acre parcel of 16th-section land on U.S. 98 just east of Oloh, officials are still double-checking that and other locations to find a feasible location. That will entail the visionary board recommending to the board of supervisors an engineering firm to conduct a study on that matter.
“Even though there may be some available property, we need to make sure it’s suitable,” Gounsalin said. “(That firm) can identify four or five parcels of land that are suitable and large enough to be able to take on not only a Phase I, but maybe a Phase 2, a Phase 3 and a Phase 4 for a master plan.
“For instance, we know there’s that 16th-section land along Highway 98, but it might be more expensive to lease it than to go and purchase land. So those are the kinds of things that we’re not experts on, so I think the board of supervisors would like to have a third party be involved with that.”
The Lamar County Sports Complex Visionary Board was approved in October by the board of supervisors. In addition to Gonsoulin, Carlise and Lampton, the visionary board is made up of Heath Sellers, Michael Hershman, Mark Norton, Darryl Smith, Chuck Bennett, Grant Hartfield and Perry Phillips.
