Newberry’s 16-stadium baseball park plan awaiting county approval

NEWBERRY – The Newberry Cooperstown Dreams Park remains one of five candidates competing to receive money from a potential two-percent increase on hotel bills, also known as a bed tax.

The county commission is scheduled to hold a public meeting on March 2 to vote on the increase that would raise the bed tax from three percent to five percent, but hasn’t set a date to decide which project, or projects, will get the money.

The other four projects are more Gainesville-centric. They include construction of a county fairground in east Gainesville, construction of the Cade Museum for Innovation and Invention, expansion of the Martin Luther King Jr. Sports Complex and construction of a conference center in downtown Gainesville.

The Newberry baseball park has the best chance to increase the value of each percent of bed tax, according to Roland Loog, the tourist development director.

It also has broad support from the commissioners, but they are hesitant to put all their eggs in one basket.

“I’m persuaded that the Newberry project is a good one and should receive some portion of the two percent, if we move forward with it,” Commissioner Mike Byerly said at a Tuesday meeting. “The real question is how much of it.”

The amount approved for Newberry will determine how long it will take to pay off the loan.

Jay Glover, of Public Financial Management, said it would take eight years to pay off the loan, if the county approved revenues from the full two percent.

If they only approved 1.2 of that 2 percent, it would take 20 years to pay off, but enough money would be left over to potentially cover one of the other four projects.

Newberry City Manager Keith Ashby and Commissioners Joe Hoffman and Lois Forte represented the city at Tuesday’s county commission meeting. They urged the county to support the Newberry project and strike while the iron is hot.

“The longer you wait, the more you put this off, the more we’re going to lose out on this as a community,” Hoffman told county officials.