With an agreement reached, the ice rinks and ball fields at Mill Avenue Park in northeast Brainerd will stay right where they are for another two years.
The Brainerd City Council approved a lease agreement with Brainerd Industrial Center owner Mike Higgins-who owns the park-during a special meeting Tuesday, Jan. 15. The city will pay $10,000 per year for the next two years to lease the park facilities and the parking lot at Memorial Park-also owned by Higgins-per the new agreement, which runs from Jan. 21, 2019, through March 1, 2021, ending after the city's pond hockey league finishes its season.
The previous lease agreement for the two parcels dates back to 1989, with the most recent five-year agreement entered into with the previous owner of the former paper mill, Wausau Paper, and signed in January 2014 for $1 a year. That agreement, which Higgins assumed when he bought the property in 2014, ends Jan. 20.
"We had numerous conversations with three different administrators, several different city council people, and I have never wavered from the fact that I was not going to renew that lease for $1," Higgins told the council Tuesday, noting he agreed to assume the previous lease because he hadn't yet decided what to do with the land.
During a city personnel and finance committee meeting in December, Higgins asked for the city to cover the cost of taxes on the land in a new lease agreement. City Administrator Cassandra Torstenson said that amount came out to about $750 a year. Higgins then requested $12,000-$20,000 per year for a new lease, though city staff and council members did not agree with that price at the time. The $20,000 the city is now set to pay for two years, however, will come out of the city's parks fund and was budgeted for at the beginning of the year.
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"For the last year I've made the statement several times that I want the taxes covered," Higgins said. "And we feel that the city's portion, or our portion of what we pay on those two properties, are approximately $10,000 a year for the 8 acres. I know you guys look at it differently, and I know the county's going to look at it differently, but when I write the check and I divide the investment on the property and the land up, we see it at about $10,000 a year, and that's why I asked for what I asked for in this negotiation."
According to Crow Wing County records, Higgins paid $89,881 in property taxes last year, with $37,700 of that going to the city.
"I don't mind paying my fair share," Higgins said Tuesday, noting an increase in property taxes this year, especially due to the Brainerd School District's bonding referendum, which he said he supports 150 percent.
Future plans
Higgins said the new lease agreement, which the council approved unanimously, buys him a couple years to decide what he wants to do with that land long-term and helps him to pay his property taxes.
"And I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with the south end of the property," Higgins said. "Volkswagen will be out of here in a year, and we want to do some kind of development. ... We're not sure what's it's going to be, what it's going to look like, but there's 50 acres out there of gorgeous property and 3,800 lineal feet of river frontage."
Though any plans are far from concrete, Higgins shared with the council a very preliminary concept for a multi-purpose sports complex with four baseball/softball diamonds, four ice rinks and a heated concessions area.
"Because we want to develop the south end of the property, we don't necessarily want to take those hockey rinks or those softball and baseball fields away from the community," Higgins said, suggesting a future private/public partnership between the Brainerd Industrial Center and the city to help build a new park but noting the idea is simply that-an idea.
The new park concept also includes an accessible playground for children with disabilities, something Higgins said Brainerd does not have a lot of.
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"This is in the early stages," Higgins emphasized. "I've been up in the air wanting to talk about this. ... I don't want to be one of those people that say I'm going to do this and then it never happens. I'm a producer."
Fundraising for the project would be the first step, should it come to fruition, Higgins said, estimating about a three-year timeline once fundraising efforts get started.
"So that's the reason we need to do something different with the ball fields on the south end of the property," he said. "We don't want to just pull them away from the city or the kids or anything like that. We want to change the south end of our property and then help the city and the parks (department) build a new and better sports complex."
Council members thanked Higgins for all the work he has done on the Brainerd Industrial Center with adding jobs in the community and praised the sports complex and accessible playground idea.
"If we get an integrated playground combined with a ballpark, that makes Brainerd a come-to spot," council member Dave Pritschet said. "You can play some ball, you can take the kids to the park. That to me is the idea."
Council members Gabe Johnson and Dave Badeaux noted the new two-year lease gives the city time to decide how to proceed with the park's current facilities.
"We're in a bit of a conundrum with where stuff is with that park, with the quality of the facilities that are there. The park board has been looking at spending money to upgrade those," Badeaux said. "But we've been holding off because of this scenario, and the two years that this allows us gives us time to plan."
Badeaux said he wants the city to take the time to thoroughly plan things out and create facilities that will last for at least 25 years.
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"Let's not just throw caution to the wind and come up with some haphazard plan," he said.
Last week Torstenson said, if needed, the city has enough room to build new ice hockey and baseball/softball facilities, along with a new parking lot, at Memorial Park, all of which is city-owned property except for the existing parking lot.
