County hires management company to oversee Lenawee Community Complex

A project initiated to make use of the former Tecumseh Products Company site on Tecumseh’s south side is closer to reality with the announcement that Sports Facility Companies (SFC), which manages and develops more than 25 high performing sports, recreation, events, and entertainment facilities across the country, has been retained by the county to oversee the Lenawee Community Complex there.

The Complex will serve the needs of the entire county as a multi-use facility with indoor and outdoor sports courts and fields. Locally, SFC manages the Cedar Point Sports Center, and its list of facilities includes Ballparks of America in Branson, Missouri. Since 2003, the SF Companies, comprised of Sports Facilities Advisory, Sports Facilities Management, and Sports Facilities Development, have become a trusted resource for communities who want to plan, fund, develop, or manage sports, recreation, entertainment, and fitness centers, according to sportsfacilities.com. The company has guided projects in more than 2,000 communities nationwide and has overseen $10 billion in developed projects, managing venues that have hosted more than 25 million visits annually and driven $200 million in overnight hotel stays each year.

David Stimpson, chair of the Lenawee County Board of Commissioners, said that SFC is preparing the architectural and engineering requests for proposals, which should be ready next month. Bids for that work will be accepted sometime by the end of May or the beginning of June for the specifications, layouts and blueprints for the facility.

“SFC has done the financials to show all the information about exactly what each square foot of it is going to generate from a revenue standpoint, costs from an operations standpoint, and costs from a build standpoint,” Stimpson said. “We won’t know actual build costs until we go get drawings and then bid out the drawings.”

The next steps are to receive and approve the architectural plans and accept bids over the summer, but preparation of the site will start before that.
“So, you’ll start to see some movement out there this summer, probably end of summer,” he said.

The Tecumseh Products Company is continuing with remediation of hazardous materials on the site, and within the next few weeks, The Products’ remediation system should be operating, he said. The project will require Consumers Energy to drop a high-voltage power line and bury it underground, so they must wait for the weather to warm so the ground thaws in order to accomplish that.

“The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is approving the reclassification of use to a much higher standard,” said Stimpson of the property. “It’s going to under what’s called a residential standard, so that they can ensure all the remediation is done to a standard that’s going to be appropriate and safe for everybody.” The EPA is reapproving those plans in collaboration with Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

Stimpson said the project’s supporters will be fundraising soon and they have been working with the state on direct appropriations. Some funding will come from money the county and the City of Tecumseh have already set aside. Almost $2 million dollars has already been secured from EGLE for the project, some of which can be renewed annually.

Tecumseh Economic Development Director Jessica Sattler said the Downriver Area Brownfield Consortium has been helpful with the project. “We went to them asking for $10,000 for ongoing environmental consultation and representation for the county, and they said, ‘We think this is such a great project and so catalytic for the community that we want to give the maximum we’re allowed to give,’ and that’s $20,000,” she said.

Sattler said the $20,000 assessment grant will go toward planning and budgeting for the demolition. “When you are doing demolition of any kind on brownfield properties, you have to make sure there’s no harmful materials in the building,” she said. “You can’t just take something down and have dangerous dust flying in the air.” The consortium will also help with acquiring approval for various stages of the demolition.

Construction will begin either this fall or spring of 2023 with a completion date projected to be the third quarter of 2024. “Lots of support letters are still coming in, from agencies and also organizations that want to use it,” Stimpson said. “It’s very, very positive.”

Of the acquisition of SFC to manage the facility, Sattler said, “They’re top tier, and if they are looking at this and saying, ‘Not only do we see the demand, we want to be part of it,’ I think that speaks volumes to how successful this project could be.”

The facility is expected to be a boost to the area. “What we always try to remind people is that when The Tecumseh Products was at its peak there were 5,000 employees a day, and many of those did not live in Tecumseh,” Sattler said. “Our infrastructure in that area was built to be able to serve that number of people coming in and out daily. I see no reason why we can’t still serve that number of people. It’s only going to build up everybody’s economy in the area.”