Frederick Mayor & Board of Aldermen Workshop on Westside Regional Park - May 1, 2024
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Frederick Mayor & Board of Aldermen Workshop on Westside Regional Park - May 1, 2024
The Mayor and Board of Aldermen held a workshop on May 1, 2024, at 3:00 p.m. to discuss two key agenda items: preliminary findings from the Westside Regional Park Action Plan and an update on the National Park Service (NPS) facilities plan. The meeting included presentations, public comments, and a consensus to advance the NPS agreement.
Consent Calendar
- Approved the minutes from the March 27, 2024 workshop by a vote of 4–0 (Alderman Russell absent).
Public Comments & Testimony
- Michael Smith (city resident) urged consideration of a petition for more pickleball courts and questioned the dichotomy between a city park and regional park, noting that county residents will use any major park.
- Jim Smersaw (downtown resident) observed that community services emerged as a top need before the county acquired the old State Farm building for similar purposes, suggesting the survey might yield different results now. He also recommended the mayor contact the Humberson family about future development on the adjacent property.
- Daniela Figueroa (interpreter) provided her name and address for the record.
- Steve Jacupsick (representing the RISE coalition) emphasized that the community wants a park, not a sports complex. He noted that the consultant's focus on sports was initially concerning, but feedback from the RISE meeting stressed the need for a community center, bike trails, and passive recreation; he believed this message was reflected in the survey results.
- Eric Anderson (Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity of Frederick County) requested that a portion of the property (potentially the southeast corner) be set aside for affordable housing development, noting that housing was a high priority in community engagement sessions.
- Pop Ready (resident, second street) questioned the study's objectives, asking what scale of project (e.g., $5M, $50M, or $100M) the city is considering and who defined the scope. He expressed concern about the lack of clear goals and the potential cost to the city.
Discussion Items
Presentation: Westside Regional Park Action Plan – Preliminary Findings
- Mark DeCampo (Director of Strategic Planning) introduced the Oshman Family Foundation and Sports Facilities Companies (SFC), who are conducting the action plan.
- Kat Visseri (Oshman Family Foundation) explained that the previous Fielder study was out of date, and a new community engagement process was launched.
- Dan Morton (SFC Vice President) presented SFC's background and methodology. He reported that community engagement included two open houses and a survey (380 responses as of the meeting). Preliminary findings showed strong demand for community services (e.g., education, senior activities, job training), followed by outdoor passive, aquatics, indoor passive, and indoor athletic. Open house sticker boards ranked community services highest. Comment cards also highlighted transportation, social services, arts, and nature.
- Morton noted that Kimley-Horn conducted an initial site conditions assessment and found no major constraints. SFC plans to develop actionable recommendations by June 2024, focusing on short-, mid-, and long-term options, including cost and operational projections.
- Alderman discussion included concerns about SFC's potential future financial interest in the facility; the Oshman Foundation and city staff explained that SFC was chosen for operational expertise and that any future management would require a separate competitive process. Several aldermen stressed that the park should primarily serve city residents, maintain affordability, and avoid gentrification. Alderman Russell expressed skepticism about the need for a sports tourism focus, emphasizing community-oriented amenities. Alderman Shackelford questioned whether the park should be a regional attraction or a highly-amenitized city park, noting the lack of county or state partnership commitments. Alderman McShane urged moving forward with budget decisions soon, given the long history of delays.
Presentation: National Park Service (NPS) Facilities Plan at Westside Regional Park
- Mark DeCampo (with NPS's Mike Seibert and Parks & Rec's Bob Smith) updated the board on relocating the NPS Historic Preservation Training Center. Originally planned for a 10-acre site west of the historic farmstead, that area proved unavailable due to a program open space easement. The new proposed site is a 10-acre parcel east of the farmstead.
- The proposed terms: NPS reimburses the city $1 million for the land, to be used for park improvements; the city may use NPS meeting rooms on weekends and after hours; NPS will maintain and restore the historic farmstead buildings; NPS will construct a shared maintenance facility (2,500–3,200 sq ft, valued at $750k–$1.4M) to replace the planned city maintenance shed, freeing the southeast corner for other uses.
- The NPS facility includes a training center and public education programming. The city will continue maintaining exterior grounds.
- Next steps: NPS must secure final funding authorization; city will proceed with rezoning, subdivision, a sale agreement, and a cooperative management agreement. The board expressed general concurrence to bring the proposal to a public hearing for formal action.
Key Outcomes
- The board unanimously approved the March 27, 2024 workshop minutes.
- The board gave informal concurrence to advance the NPS facilities agreement and related resolutions to a public hearing.
- SFC will continue data analysis, close the community survey, and present final recommendations to the board in June 2024.
- Several aldermen emphasized that future decisions must prioritize city residents, ensure affordability, and avoid unintended displacement or over-commercialization of the park.
Meeting Transcript
We expect both the mayor and Otterman McShane to join us. Bear with me here. We will begin with a presentation regarding the West Side Regional Plan Action Plan, preliminary findings. And presenting is Mark Tia Campo. Thank you very much, Alderwoman Nash, members of the board. Mark DeCampo, Director of Strategic Planning and Executive Projects for the Office of the Mayor. So here before you is the Oshman Family Foundation as well as representatives from the sports facilities company, which is the consultant with the Oshman Family Foundation to discuss their activities to date and their preliminary findings of the community engagement process for the West Side Regional Park Action Plan. So without further ado, I will pass this off to Kat Bis Ray. Thank you, Mark. Hi, I'm Kat Visseri. I am with the Osham Family Foundation. You may recall that late last year we came before before you and proposed that we create an action plan for Westside Regional Park. The previous study, the field or study, was out of date, and uh we required more community engagement than perhaps we had the first time. So that's a very big component of what we are coming to to present to you today. Um I will turn it over to um Dan Morton from Sports Facilities Companies. Good to be here. Thank you. Um as uh mentioned, my name is Dan Morton with Sports Facilities Companies or SFC. Um I'm the vice president of pre-development services with our company. I've been with the companies for right around 15 years now. I'll tell you a little bit more about who we are, what we do, in addition to what we've been engaged to do, and and some of those preliminary findings. I'm gonna take about 20 minutes uh to present. I'm gonna go through a bunch of information pretty quickly, so we'll look forward to some questions uh as we go. So, just in terms of what we're gonna cover, I'll go through an overview of who we are, what we do, I'll give you some examples of um the type of projects that we're involved in. Um talk about the scope of work that we've engaged for and the timeline. Uh, we're gonna give you some information on what we're doing in terms of market analysis, as well as uh really importantly community engagement. And so we'll walk through what's been found so far, um, what we've learned so far in in community engagement and what we're continuing to learn uh through the process, give you an update for that. I've got some facility examples as well to share with you from our portfolio just how we're serving communities uh through facilities um across the country and give you some idea on some of the modern facilities we're seeing today that are being developed to serve communities. I think it'll give some more uh insight to this kind of things we're seeing um important across the country, but obviously we want to look at what's unique uh for this community. So um just in terms of who we are what we do. Um I'm sorry, just before you move forward. Can you tell me so I I did look through all the backup? The the things that you have listed and what you just mentioned, are those owned by SFC? Uh our facility the facilities that we manage, uh they are not owned by SFC. We are engaged as a manager of facilities when we're at the so you are though, you do have a financial um take stake in these facilities. In some, yes, in the ones that we manage. I'll give you some more background on how we get involved, but when we are managing in the operations, uh we are paid to do so. So there's a financial stake that way, but we don't actually own them. Okay. So at SFC Sports Fiz Companies, we've been in uh business since uh 2003, so uh just over 20 years. Uh we get involved and focus on the planning, development, and operational management of youth and amateur sports recreation event community facilities across the country. The key there, and obviously from our name with sports in it, as we've grown over the last uh 20 years and expanded what we do from a study perspective as well as what we do from a management perspective. We've in we've expanded into really the world of recreation and community service. Um, for example, uh, and I'll give you some examples of our facilities, but we're engaged by a city in Mississippi where we essentially run their entire parks and recreation department, and that includes community centers on the indoor side as well as outdoor passive and active recreation. So just to give you an example of that, we aren't engaged here for management, right? We're engaged for planning for the Westside regional park. But importantly for us is that everything that we do is based on what we know to be true from real world operations, right? From our recommendations to what we forecast in terms of how a facility could operate. We're drawing on our background experience across the country for facilities that we manage, but also facilities that we consult with to help give recommendations for your community. Some of the other things we're involved in as you know, thought leaders for our industry is we help to study for several states.
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