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The staff would like to proceed to develop a selection team to evaluate the firms and <br />make a recommendation to the Board for a contract, which would came back before the <br />summer break. The staff would like direction on the makeup of this team. The County owns <br />part of the land and the Town of Hillsborough owns part. Staff would suggest including <br />representatives from the Town of Hillsborough for this team. The Board agreed. <br />Commissioner Gordan said that she would like to see this move forward expeditiously <br />because the County has been promising a park here for a long time. <br />Twin Creeks Park, Phase <br />With Elementary School #10 underway on the schools campus portion of this 193-acre <br />site, a staff team and the design/engineering firm have been working to prepare the extensive <br />Conditional Use Permit application materials to submit to the Town of Carrboro for approval of <br />phase I of the park. Several preliminary development meetings have been held with Town staff <br />and attorney, as have discussions with adjacent property owners about shared infrastructure. <br />Carrboro staff has suggested several components to be included in the application, outlined in <br />the attached summary. Updated cost estimates for Phase I of the park have been developed, <br />however available funding is insufficient to build Phase I at this time. An alternative scenario to <br />continue with the design work and use these funds temporarily toward soccer fields elsewhere <br />is proposed. <br />There could be some economies of scale by building all four fields at one time. This <br />would save $275,000. As a result of this, and in light of some recent discussions, there is an <br />alternative scenario to continue with the plan to submit the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) <br />application for the four-field complex, continue the infrastructure negotiations, address the <br />financing needs for the larger four-field complex as part of the CIP discussions later this fall, and <br />in the short term borrow (on a temporary basis) from same of the funds to look at creating <br />soccer fields using artificial turf at a location such as Smith Middle field in the interim. <br />Laura Blackmon said that she needs to look at what the County is producing with regard <br />to parks throughout the entire community. She said that there are many parks on the books and <br />many promises, and there is no outline for the funding on how the parks are going to be <br />produced. She does not want to do this piece meal. She said that it would really make sense to <br />do the four fields at Twin Creeks. She would like to look at addressing the two current fields <br />that could have artificial turf. She said that, if this approach were taken, she would like to use <br />the funds that are currently available, which is about $1.6 million, to look at providing artificial <br />turf and do it as a partnership with the other soccer entities. This would provide at least two <br />fields that could be used year round and they are in the southern part of the County. <br />Commissioner Nelson commended Laura Blackmon on her recommendation. He thinks <br />that this recommendation is trying to find a win-win situation. He asked about the costs far Twin <br />Creeks and it was answered that $1.9 would be the bare minimum for two fields without <br />irrigation or lighting, and the infrastructure. <br />Laura Blackmon said that her concern is that this is creating Smith Middle School all <br />over again - no irrigation, two fields, and limited use. <br />Commissioner Nelson said that his other concern is that money would be taken from <br />Twin Creeks to turf the fields at Smith. He asked what this would do to Twin Creeks. Laura <br />Blackmon said that it probably would not slow down the timeline. The ten-year capital plan has <br />not been done yet and things can be shifted around. She does not know the entire amount to <br />turf the fields, but she thinks it might be around $1 million. The hope is to get some partners to <br />help. <br />Commissioner Nelson said that if the Smith fields and the four fields at Twin Creeks <br />could be done, he would be comfortable going ahead with West Ten. He would like to sit down <br />with the soccer community and flesh this potential partnership out. He is a little uncomfortable <br />