In November 2016, the Camp Verde Town Council approved $7 million in bonds to pay for construction of the Camp Verde Sports Complex by McCracken Lane.
At the time, Camp Verde Town Manager Russ Martin said he hoped that the park would be operational by spring or summer 2019.
In August 2018, town staff offered a tour of the park in its early construction phase to council members, shortly after the dirt had been graded. Town officials said that they expected that construction would begin in the spring, with the park open for use by fall 2019.
When the town opened the construction project up for bids in spring 2019, they found that the bids exceeded what the town had planned to spend on the project, and rejected all bids in August. At the time, Camp Verde Public Works Director Ron Long said that he expected that bids would be opened up for another, hopefully more successful round of bidding in late October or early November of this year.
It is now early November, and Martin says that the park bidding is not going out for another few weeks at least.
“We’re not sure if they’ll be able to start in early January even if they got the approval, so we’re trying to make sure we get everything packaged rightly,” Martin said. “We’re not going to rush anything until we get to the end of October, or first of November, because even if we ran a good procurement process, right up until Christmas — and we’ve talked about whether that’s a smart thing to do because Christmas time is hard to get [construction companies’] attention — we’re wrestling with that, and whether we should wait until after January first to make sure that we’ve got bidders’ attention, because they may not with weather anyway be able to start until February or whatever anyway.”
“We continue to make progress on the park bid adjustments,” Long wrote in an email. “We are still planning on going back out to bid shortly for construction starting in the new year. We will keep you updated as we move forward.”
Despite the delays, Martin said that he is confident that the construction this time will be done on time for the schedule that the town is looking at, hopefully allowing the park to be open by fall 2020. He said that it is possible some finishing touches may be late, but that the park as a whole should be open.
“I don’t lay awake at night worrying about it. That’s how confident I really feel,” Martin said. He argued that a more relaxed schedule for the project should allow for better bids. “If the grass gets planted in May instead of April, or June instead of April, I don’t think anyone is going to be concerned about that time frame.”
Members of Council expressed mixed views on the delays. Mayor Charlie German argued it would be worth it to get the park right and within budget, even if it took a while.
“I am concerned about getting the sports complex finished in a timely fashion, but I definitely want to see it done right all the way through,” German wrote in an email. “I believe if the next bidding process comes in with good figures, we will have some use of the park by next summer. Let’s face it … this sports complex was one of three reasons Camp Verde was incorporated and that was in 1985. It has taken from that point to present to purchase the park property, award the first bids and now let the next bid out during November or December. We have accomplished more within the past 10 years than what was accomplished in the previous 20.”
“The Sports Complex has been a long time coming, however like the library, it will be worth the wait,” Councilwoman Robin Whatley wrote in an email. “The park is a sizable investment and we want to take the time needed to do it right. I remain hopeful that we will have ball fields next fall.”
Councilman Bill LeBeau said he was cautious about the park construction, but expressed continued hope.
“I was surprised to learn that the initial phase of construction cost considerably more than had been projected,” LeBeau wrote in an email. “After reviewing the bids to actually put the fields in, it was discovered that the town only had enough of the money remaining from the loan to put in just one baseball and two soccer fields. That led to us rejecting all of the bids.
“I think the pause in the project was the proper decision as we looked for what we might build with our remaining budget for phase one.
