Let tourists pay for Lakewood Ranch sports campus, commissioner says

Just days after Manatee County learned of an offer to sell it the Premier Sports Campus, a Manatee County commissioner wanted to ensure Lakewood Ranch residents knew exactly what was being proposed.

During a Lakewood Ranch Republican Club luncheon Friday at the Ranch Grill, just down the road from the sports campus, Carol Whitmore addressed Schroeder-Manatee Ranch’s offer to sell its Premier Sports Campus — plus land for a new swimming pool — to Manatee County government.

“There is definitely a need,” the at-large county commissioner said of the pool. “We can all enjoy our personal ones, but we need this for schools.”

The offer, which would include a transfer of “126.9 acres of parking, fields, lighting and miscellaneous buildings,” as well as the transfer of “36 acres on the north side of the Sports Campus” to be used as an aquatics center, which should be built within the next five years, would come at a cost of $5.2 million, which reflects SMR’s construction cost of the campus, according to a letter sent by SMR.

With tourists coming to the Lakewood Ranch complex, Whitmore said the cost could be paid by tourists.

“It doesn’t have to be paid by the general government,” said Whitmore, a Republican who was first elected to the commission in 2006. “We don’t have the money so we are looking at ways to work this out. The tourists come and use your fields anyway so why not let them pay it.”

Steve Vernon, Lakewood Ranch Republican Club president, said SMR president and CEO Rex Jensen’s objective “is not really to keep control of all the assets under SMR.”

“He wants to basically get himself out of a job over a period of time,” Vernon said. “This is what this is for.”

Besides the SMR offer, Whitmore addressed other issues affecting the county, including the budget, a pending charter government proposal, county administrator search and a 2018 referendum on increasing the homestead exemption.

“We know it’s going to pass,” Whitmore said. “That will be an $8.2 million cut to our revenue so (County Administrator) Ed Hunzeker has come up with a plan that if we start being conservative and putting a reserve aside and not going nuts spending we can probably not have layoffs and keep the same services in 2020, which is when this would take effect.”

With regard to the ongoing national search to find Hunzeker’s successor, Whitmore said she’s looking for somebody financially strong.

“If we don’t get the person that most of us are looking for, then we will look again,” Whitmore said.

This story was originally published June 16, 2017 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Let tourists pay for Lakewood Ranch sports campus, commissioner says."