Camp Verde is waiting on the feds, again.
In November 2016, the Camp Verde Town Council approved $7 million in bonding 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.
The project has faced numerous delays since then, including a lawsuit and issues with bids for construction, but the Town of Camp Verde had hoped to begin major construction on Phase 1 of the project this month.
In February 2020, the Camp Verde Town Council approved a $3.7 million bid by Tierra Verde Builders to construct Phase 1 of the park, which included taking out a $1.5 million bond to pay for most of what they wanted built. The town also applied for a Land & Water Conservation Fund matching grant worth $2.5 million through Arizona State Parks, funded through the federal Great American Outdoors Act passed in August 2020.
The town had hoped that the grant funding would come through by March of this year, but due to delays at the federal level, they are stuck not yet receiving the money and not yet able to begin construction.
“There has not been another funding opportunity opened in grants.gov for two reasons,” Mickey Rogers, chief of grants and trails at Arizona State Parks and Trails, wrote the town in an email. “One was COVID, where it was not possible to consult with the tribes, which is required with all projects, and many of the tribes were required to stay at home, making consultation not possible. The second is the former administration made a major change in the priorities in the LWCF program which drastically changed the original vision of the LWCF program. This change will need to be rescinded and a new bill approved to re-establish the priorities of the program.”
The town is optimistic that the funding will be released soon, but in the meantime it is not able to begin until it is.
“They don’t want us to spend one dime on the things that we’re getting the grant for,” Camp Verde Public Works Director Ron Long said. “We’re getting all the plans ready so that when they say we can get the grant funded, we can go.”
According to Long, the plan is to try to nevertheless get started this spring on some of the projects that are not included in the grant,
as well as prepare everything to go as soon as the grant is released.
“Currently we are working with engineers and designers getting plans ready for bid on components of the project,” Long wrote in an email. “We have construction plans into ADOT to construct the entrance to the park from [State Route] 260. As soon as those are approved they will be put out for bid. We are working on the design of the restroom concession facility and the maintenance facility that will be built at the Sports Complex. And we are preparing to bid the utility connection from the Waste Water Treatment Plant to the Sports Complex. The plan is to have things ready to go as soon as we get the word that we can start.”
Though this current delay is out of the town’s hands, it nevertheless leads to frustration among those in government who have been pushing for the park.
“Of course I’m disappointed because we did expect the matching funds to appear in March. Of course with COVID it’s continuing to be delayed,” Camp Verde Mayor Dee Jenkins said. “It is frustrating. This is my fifth year on council. Each year we thought we’d be able to open that summer. It’s been one delay after another. They’re for different reasons. This delay this time is clearly out of control because of COVID.”
Long believes that even with delays, the park should be able to open in the fall, mostly on schedule. He feels that with the main projects necessary for the soccer fields — goalpost and fencing — being relatively easy, it should be possible to have them ready even if other parts of the park remain under construction.
“I feel pretty good about the possibility that we could have play in the fall,” Long said. “Once we get the word to go back to construction, the fields should be complete in a couple months. There are things we could do like put up temporary fencing to fence people off from the construction area. We are going to look for ways to open it up for play in the fall. I think we can pull it off, I really do. ”
