- November 6, 2024
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Palm Coast will spend a combined $1.5 million to add bathrooms at the Palm Coast Arts Foundation property and bathrooms and sports lighting at the Indian Trails Sports Complex.
The lighting has been part of the city’s capital improvement plan for years, City Manager Jim Landon told the City Council at a May 2 council meeting.
“Indian Trails Sports Complex is one of the largest draws for visitors every year,” he said. “This is a way of reinvesting back into the tourism market here in Palm Coast.”
The Palm Coast Arts Foundation is on land that is owned by the city and leased to PCAF, so the bathrooms there will be on city land.
The will be constructed behind the current stage and built in a manner that will allow them to be incorporated into PCAF’s planned expansion.
Money for the projects, officials said, comes from the city’s recreation impact fees, which are earmarked for use on recreation-related projects, and from the local small-county surtax.
The bathrooms will altogether cost up to $976,710, including a $46,510 contingency. The lighting at the sports fields is expected to cost up to $547,050, including a $26,050 contingency.
The lights at Indian Trails will illuminate three fields that currently can’t be used after dark, raising the facility’s capacity.
“With the expansion of the fields in the last few years, the tournament play has increased substantially,” Mayor Milissa Holland said at the meeting. “You can really see a direct correlation.”
During the meeting’s public comment period, several residents objected, asking why the money couldn’t instead be used for safety improvements like street lights and sidewalks.
“One of the pillars of public safety is lighting,” resident Ed Fuller said. “And I’m glad to see that we’re going to get lights for that field. .. But I’d like to know where we are at lighting the corridors. … We are an outdoor community — it’s certainly designed that way — and lighting is an integral part of safety for our citizens.”
Holland said the city has allocated $100,000 to have a study done to evaluate where lights and sidewalks are needed, and can only move forward once that information comes in.
“I don’t think there’s a single person on this council who has not made that a priority,” she said. “Within this year, we want to see a substantial improvement made on our streets and sidewalks.”
