CARTHAGE — One year after receiving a nearly $240 million shot in the arm from the men’s and women’s U.S. Open golf tournaments at Pinehurst No. 2, Moore County is about to get another economic boost.
Just not to the scale of what it received last year. Carthage’s Hillcrest Park will serve as the host site for the Dixie Softball Angels X-Play and Ponytails X-Play World Series August 7 to 13.
Moore County officials said the event will bring as many as 2,000 visitors to the area and should generate an economic impact of $4 million.
“Moore County was chosen because of its location, playing facilities, motels, restaurants and outside activities away from the ball-playing area, but mostly because of the willingness of the people in Moore County to work and provide a great experience for the many players, coaches, parents, fans, umpires and Dixie Softball officials so that they will long remember their experience and want to come back and revisit the Moore County area,” said James E. “Obie” Evans, president of Dixie Softball.
This is the type of impact financially the Committee to Promote Economic Growth and Development in Richmond County envisioned when it supported the one-quarter cent sales tax increase to help fund the construction of a multi-use recreation complex on the city-owned property on Old Aberdeen Road. The project was to include baseball/softball fields, football/soccer fields, walking trail, a dog park, a disc golf course and other amenities and was expected to cost between $10 million and $12 million.
Richmond County voters soundly rejected the referendum in November, forcing officials to take a step back and re-examine the plans for the site.
“The only way to do what we wanted to do was with the sales tax money,” Rockingham Mayor Steve Morris said following the vote. “Now there’s no way to do that.”
The future of the site
Rockingham City Manager Monty Crump said there are ongoing discussions about the direction of the complex. He echoed Morris’ comments that the original plans will have to be put on hold.
Crump added officials are looking at scaling back the number of fields that will be initially built at the site.
“We hope to have something finalized by Jan. 1, 2016,” Crump said.
One of the biggest determining factors into the future of the site could be the direction of the Rockingham Parks and Recreation Department. Crump said currently 62 percent of all the participants in the city’s youth sports teams are non-city residents.
There are no residency restrictions to register to participate in a youth sport in either Rockingham or Hamlet. Football is the lone sport that is only offered by one of the county’s parks and recreation departments.
Crump said because of this open enrollment and without a limit on the number of registrations, it has caused the current facilities for baseball and softball — Bynum (Civitian) Park and Browder Park — to be overused. Crump added there is no room for growth at either facility for additional fields or parking spaces.
One possible solution is having a set number of signups for each sport and give Rockingham residents the first opportunity to fill those slots. If there are any open spots available after the city residents register, then non-city residents would be placed on teams.
“That’s just one idea that we are discussing,” Crump said. “It’s a business decision. We are basically subsidizing a county recreation department with 60 percent being from outside the city.”
The Rockingham Parks and Recreation budget is expected to increase to $667,597 next year from $583,200 this year, an increase of nearly 15 percent. The county provides $47,250 to Rockingham and $31,500 to Hamlet. Crump said when the city first took over operations of the youth sports program, the budget was $90,000.
Optimistic about attracting events
Crump still believes the proposed recreation complex will still be a viable option for state and national tournaments even if it isn’t “as ambitious” as officials would have wished.
“It will make it more difficult,” Crump said. “I think we can still attract tournaments, it will just be more difficult.”
Keith Parsons, the chairman of Committee to Promote Economic Growth and Development in Richmond County, thought Richmond County would be as viable an option as Carthage is for tournaments even with a scaled-down version of the complex.
“We have a lot of things…there’s Discovery Place Kids, Hitchcock Creek, Hinson Lake,” Parsons said. “Rockingham is about as far from the other things like movie theaters in Southern Pines as Carthage is.”
Reach managing editor Shawn Stinson at 910-817-2671 and follow him on Twitter @scgolfer.