City considers adding new playing fields City considers adding new playing fields (December 03, 2004)

Charleston hotel site misses cut

By Jon Wiener

The city council declined last week to study building an athletic field complex at a vacant North Bayshore site, holding out hope that it will one day house a four-star hotel.

At a Nov. 23 study session, the council authorized the parks and recreation commission to look at building soccer and baseball fields at multiple sites throughout the city, including the former Whisman School site, Cuesta Park annex and two lots in Shoreline Park.

With the exception of Council member Greg Perry, the council refused to consider using a large Charleston East site that the parks and recreation commission had recommended for study, citing the distance from residential neighborhoods and their desire to see a hotel on the site.

Council member Mike Kasperzak called the 18.6-acre property, at the corner of Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard, a "non-starter." For several years, the city has hoped to bring a hotel to the site, calculating in 2001 that it could generate more than $2.5 million in annual tax revenue.

With commercial areas all over the city being slated for other uses -- the council had earlier just approved a tax-exempt medical clinic for the former Emporium site -- the city is facing permanent reductions to its sales tax base, and council members are becoming reluctant to allow more.

Employees in the North Bayshore area already have regular pick-up games going, according to Vince Leone. A coach with his daughter's under-12 club soccer team, Leone is also one of a group of 50 to 100 different workers from the Shoreline business district who participate in the lunchtime games at Charleston Park, next to Google's headquarters.

"Because of the work-day games, it's actually good to have a field in an industrial area," he said, adding that the demand for soccer facilities for adults often goes unnoticed.

Leone added that building just one field would not alleviate the problem, a position shared by council members.

The sites chosen by the council could all hold at least one new baseball field and one new soccer field each, and a 6-acre site in Shoreline Park could accommodate even more.

While the council and commission continue to study potential sites for new fields, the renovated playing fields at Graham Middle School remain on schedule to reopen in September 2005. The city will be refurbishing the fields after digging them up to build an underground reservoir tank that will hold 2.3 million gallons of water.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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