Kurt;
The proposed plan for the Johnson Lane
Recreation Area improvements is a monumental occasion for soccer in Tullahoma.
It represents the fruition of many years of hard work, cooperation, and planning
with the City and TSA.
While the Master
Plan shows much creativity and forethought to get so much value out of the
available land area, there are a couple of issues that need to be
addressed.
Some of the original
reasons for this are:
1) Soccer has no
"permanent" home. The State owns the land the current fields are on and may take
them back with short notice. Part of the lease prohibits the construction of
"permanent" facilities to include restrooms, concession stand, lights,
etc.
2) Soccer in
Tullahoma is growing. The current fields in heavily used during the week and on
weekends. This usage is expected to increase in the near
term.
3) There are not
enough fields in Tullahoma to host even a small tournament. This limits
fundraising opportunities for TSA.
4) The entrance to
the JLRA was seen as unsafe and this project would include provisions to fix
that.
The current proposal
by Lose & Associates addresses all of these concerns except one. If we lose
the Rogers Group Soccer Complex (RGSC) the current configuration of fields
will result in the net loss of a field. With our current playing schedules, this
would force us to go elsewhere to pick up the additional field. As long as we
maintain access to RGSC, this is easily worked around as we would continue to
utilize the existing fields.
With the current
plan there is no room for expansion for soccer. Once again, retaining access to
the RGSC is critical to the growth of the soccer program. The problems with
facilities and lighting will continue to limit the use of RGSC, but the addition
of the built-out fields at JLRA will ease that considerably.
One fundamental
question that needs an answer is why baseball needs a new quad. They have
existing facilities that serve them well. They are getting dated, but is it more
cost effective to rehab the existing facilities or start over? Is there room for
expansion at Waggoner Park to move all 4 fields there? Are there scheduling
difficulties that can't be addressed otherwise? Are there expansion and growth
opportunities being missed due to the current facilities? In the 6+ years we
have been addressing our challenges in the soccer program to the Mayor
and Board of Aldermen, the comments we heard from baseball were that the
facilities were getting old and they would like a new quad. These comments were
made during the last month or so before the vote to fund the JLRA
improvements.
A good thought early
on was to move all the athletic fields to JLRA to consolidate recreation and
maintenance. That would be a great plan, but the City just built 2 football
fields at Waggoner. As the Master Plan shows, there isn't room for the soccer
fields, a baseball quad, and football fields. With the land limitations it looks
like the best that can be done overall would be to continue to maintain a
minimum of 2 locations, JLRA and Waggoner.
If there was a way
to move the baseball fields to JLRA also without taking away from the soccer
program, I would be all for it and stated such while serving on the committee to
help choose a Consulting firm for the project. I have no problem with the
baseball program, we serve a lot of the same kids, share coaches, and I
do appreciate the efforts of the baseball program. They work hard to
provide a quality program. I just don't think the soccer program should be
limited when there has not been an identified and documented need for a new
baseball quad.
TSA fully supports
the all of the improvements at the JLRA except the addition of the baseball
quad. Our alternative would be to use that area as a large single grade
playing surface. This would allow us to break the area up into smaller fields to
accomodate the younger players. The single surface would give us the flexibility
to adjust the space to fit the ever changing needs of the youngest
players.
A compromise
may be to initially grade the space to allow the single surface playing area,
keeping the long range plan to add baseball fields. As long as access to RGSC is
maintained, that space could be converted to a baseball quad without losing
soccer capacity. When the baseball fields are built out there could be an
agreement put in place where soccer would be able to use the outfields for the
smaller games (U6 & U8) during the Fall season. This compromise would at
least match the current field availability at RGSC.
We are anxious to work out a plan that will allow
us all to move forward with no delays. Our hope is to be able to find
a solution that meets the short term and long term needs of the soccer
community, supports the overall recreation needs of the entire
community, and that provides the best value for the City of
Tullahoma.
Thank you,
Bob
Forde
TSA
President