A bit of history was shared and made during the Odessa City Council meeting Tuesday night with a generous donation from one of Odessa’s oldest families.
Larry Bell and his family announced a few months ago they wanted to donate 100 acres to the city so it can build a $50 million sports complex in the Parks Bell Ranch area, north of Faudree Road.
The 80,000-100,000 square foot complex will feature 20 volleyball courts, 10 basketball courts and a track, plus 8-12 multi-purpose fields for soccer, football and lacrosse and up to eight baseball/softball fields.
City officials hope the complex will be paid for by corporate sponsorships and private donations. A move was made in that direction Tuesday to set up a nonprofit organization that will be named in honor of Larry and Ellen Bell’s late daughter, Amy Bell. The nonprofit will exist to accept donations for the private-public partnership to build the sports complex.
This will be the largest partnership since the Toby and Sondra Eoff partnership with the City of Odessa to create the Marriott in downtown Odessa.
Larry Bell told Odessa’s City Council that it is important to keep the legacy that “our parents and grandparents cared deeply about the community and taught us to give back to where you came from.”
He said his family has built a wonderful life here and that it is important to give back and to “pay it forward.”
He said his family met and said this is the opportunity to give back to Odessa and Ector County. “Let’s do something significant that will lead to a stronger community.”
Bell, during a news conference prior to the meeting, pointed out how many in the Permian Basin have had to drive hundreds of miles for sporting events and that the new sports complex will mean that folks will now drive here and stay here and spend their money here in the Permian Basin.
Bell described the Parks-Bell area as a place where the quality of life is a focus on family with wide streets and sidewalks. “We like to go out and see all the strollers and people walking dogs and it’s all about family,” he said. “…It all contributes to the quality of the entire family.”
Bell credited Odessa City Councilman Steve Thompson with getting the ball rolling for the donation. “Steve is our representative of our district and someone we have been talking to for a while…it all goes back to when he was campaigning for city council and he is very familiar with the area around 191 and Faudree … even in those early days we talked about how to continue to build and grow and enhance all the things.”
He said Thompson later brought in city staff and that the intention was always for a significant private/public partnership. “We wanted to take this first big and major step and said let’s get behind this thing and do something significant and it will lead to bigger and better things and a stronger community.”
Bell called on others in the business community and also individuals to do what they can to give back and “pay it forward.”
Odessa’s Collin Sewell, who was named during the city council meeting to the new board that will oversee the sports complex, thanked the Bell family and urged unity and positivity going forward. “I think that it is interesting that everything starts with a dream … it’s come to pass in my own life,” Sewell said Tuesday. “Mr. Bell you have taken a dream and created a vision for our community. I want to thank you … we need to take what was a dream and is now a vision and make it a reality … my hope is it will be a new cornerstone for what we are known for … focused on the future and not on the past and on family and not feuds … we can write an entire new chapter from the tree the Bell family has planted … make it something that makes the headlines for what the new Odessa looks like.”
During Bell’s remarks to the council he credited other great ranching families for their donations and contributions such as the Hurt/Ratliffs, the McKnights and the Scharbauers. He spoke of how donations from those families have formed important anchors in the Odessa/Midland region such as Ratliff Stadium and the Scharbauer Sports Complex.
He said the land is to be used for “the perpetual benefit” of all the youth of Odessa. “These young people are our future. Let’s do something special for them and future generations,” Bell said. “A project like this has been needed in Odessa for a long, long time. Let’s work together now to make this happen.”
Bell said the Parks Bell family goes back more than 100 years in Odessa. Bell’s wife Ellen’s grandfather Roy Parks Sr. came to Odessa in 1918 and settled on a piece of land between Midland and Odessa.
