A sports facility development company believes the City of Odessa would be able to make a $14 million sports complex a financial success if it forms a public private partnership to build it.
Synergy Global Founder Jason Boudrie also told the City Council Tuesday night he believes the best location for the complex would be in Parks-Bell Ranch, but he also revealed he has just learned ICA Properties has expressed an interest in selling at least 20 acres at the end of Yukon Road to the city.
Mayor Javier Joven directed Council members Mark Matta and Denise Swanner and their Quality of Life committee to more fully explore the ICA proposal and several other options in the coming weeks. He hopes a decision will be made by July.
On Feb. 14, the Odessa City Council agreed to hire Synergy Global for $15,000 to conduct a sports complex feasibility study. More than 3,100 residents participated in a 10-question online survey gauged to determine their top priorities and several more residents attended two community meetings on the facility.
The vast majority of participants want the facility in either District 2 or District 4, Boudrie said. They also listed basketball and volleyball courts at the top of their wish list followed by indoor turf, baseball fields and indoor batting cages.
After looking at demographics and socioeconomics, sports participation rates, competitors, the size and components of the city’s courts and fields, possible partnerships and construction costs, Boudrie said he believes the city’s best bet is to build a 70,000 square foot facility with six basketball courts and 12 volleyball courts.
A $1.5 million track could be purchased later, he said. For an extra $10 million, the city could add four 300-foot baseball/softball fields.
Such a facility would accommodate a 144-team volleyball tournament and a 50-team basketball tournament, he said.
With the inclusion of the outdoor fields, the city could bring in $133,724 during Year One, which is a 9% profit margin and by Year Five, they’d bring in $738,936 annually for a 31% profit margin, Boudrie said.
If the city were to add ice rinks, they would lose $2 million to $2.5 million over the first five years because there’s just not enough of a market to support the daily operating expenses, Boudrie said. Weekend tourneys would not bring in enough money.
Before ICA entered the picture in recent days, Synergy had identified four potential sites for the complex: City-owned land near the Ector County jail, private land at I-20 and Loop 338, private land behind Home Depot known as the McKnight Family Ranch and private land at the end of Faudree Road known as the Parks-Bell Ranch.
The city needs a minimum of 60 acres to build a facility, but ideally they’d obtain 70-90 acres for future expansion, Boudrie said.
Many of the proposed sites are in flood plains, Boudrie said. He recommended Parks-Bell because it’s in the path of future development, but it is privately owned so the city could have to strike a deal with the owners.
PSI
In other matters, the City Council also heard a presentation from Performance Services Inc., a company that would like to sign an energy savings performance contract with the city, similar to one they currently have with Odessa College.
The 220-employee company tries to find ways school districts and municipalities can save money through capital improvement projects and if those projects don’t work, the company compensates them.
PSI finds third-party financing for the capital improvement projects using the city’s credit rating and they get paid based on the construction projects as they are completed. After 18 months to two years, a third party analysis is done to ensure the city actually has saved the amount promised.
“They are guaranteed savings projects. If we tell you we’ll save you $100,000, by law, we either have to cut you a check if we don’t make that or we are saving you that money and I believe we only ever once had a situation where we were delayed a couple of months on getting product. And yes, we compensated the city for that. So things that are outside of our control, we still have to make sure that the city is even,” said Business Development Manager Jenna Shadowitz. “The city is not permitted to spend even $1. They have to be cash flow neutral, if not cash flow positive.”
Shadowitz was joined by Business Development Managers Chip Woods, Water Specialist Ryan Quigley and Engineer Sai Ganasan, who told the council they’ve identified a handful of ways the city can save money.
They think the city should replace all 45,000 of the city’s water meters, upgrade the wastewater treatment plant, build a 2 million gallon elevated water tank on the northside of town and convert all of the city’s buildings to LED lighting.
The group noted 6,000 of the city’s water meters can’t be read right now and due to short staffing, employees are estimating monthly usage of some meters regularly. In addition, they noted the city’s meters have antiquated moving parts that malfunction regularly and can’t be replaced. New meters don’t have moving pieces.
The council asked PSI to provide them additional documentation on how the capital improvement projects would be funded.
Once that information is obtained, the council will be asked to give PSI permission to hire third-party vendors to confirm their findings. If the vendors do confirm the findings in a report, the city would pay for the report and either move forward with a PSI contract or table discussions for another time. Or if the findings aren’t supported, the city would still own the report, but PSI would have to pay for the report.
Shadowitz also addressed a Tuesday Odessa American article. The article reported a PSI subcontractor pleaded guilty last April to bribing a member of the Mission school board $30,000 to support an energy savings performance contract with the company.
The article further stated PSI won a $500,000 judgment against the company owned by the subcontractor, but the cities of Roma and Mission cancelled their contracts.
The OA also revealed the Progress Times newspaper reported that Jeremy T. Lancon of Aqua-Metric pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges in March 2022.
The newspaper reported Lancon was working at Aqua-Metric when the Agua Special Utility District in Hidalgo County signed an $11.6 million contract with Performance Services Inc. Federal prosecutors said Lancon was told the company would contract with Aqua-Metric if Aqua-Metric hired certain people, including a “Person B” who served on the La Joya school board.
Because Performance Services Inc. had a contract with the La Joya Independent School District and couldn’t pay “Person B” directly, they agreed Lancon would pay “Person B” a “finder’s fee” of just over $15,000, federal prosecutors said.
The Agua SUD filed a lawsuit against Performance Services Inc. last year. According to the Progress Times, the district installed new water meters and replaced old light bulbs with LEDs after signing an $11.6 million contract. According to the lawsuit, Performance Services Inc. promised the contract would pay for itself in energy savings, but the district is now saddled with millions of dollars of debt.
The utility district, which had demanded more than $1 million in damages, has since agreed to go through arbitration with the company.
“We, in 2021, had a rogue employee and he was working with some cities in the valley and some of that stuff was under investigation. At no point was Performance Services ever the focus. We are not under investigation and it is worth noting no previous employee or current employee has been indicted in the entire Hidalgo County situation,” Shadowitz said. “We just wanted to get that out there. We are very transparent. We’re happy to get you with our in-house counsel or any of our attorneys if you have more questions.”
Shadowitz said her company has had more than 600 projects and 52% of their customers are repeat customers.
