The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority (IDA) agreed on Tuesday to spend up to $4 million from its reserves to cover the added costs of using synthetic turf rather than natural grass on eight fields at the future Dawson Park on Rocky Branch Road.
The IDA is using this investment in what it is calling sports tourism to bring in out-of-county visitors for tournaments and other sporting events who will stay in county hotels, patronize local restaurants, and spend money at retails outlets in the county.
The IDA on Tuesday also instructed Authority Member and Chamber of Commerce President Courtney Bernardi to come back with estimates of the costs of hiring a consultant to present ways to expand sports tourism beyond Dawson Park.
Watkinsville Mayor Brian Brodrick, also a member of the IDA, said the county’s four cities will receive part of the revenue from a renewal of the county’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), on the ballot in May.
Bogart, North High Shoals, and Watkinsville have listed parks and recreation facilities as a spending category on the resolution requesting that SPLOST be on the May 19 ballot. Bishop listed only Roads, Streets, Bridges, and Sidewalks as a spending category.
The idea of using sports tourism as a means of promoting development in the county surfaced from a series of meetings in recent months about how to spend the $5.4 million reserve held by the IDA.
The discussion before the vote on Tuesday was on how much money to hold in reserve and on how to replenish that account in the future.
As the meeting came to an end, County Attorney Daniel Haygood told the group that he had been approached by Presbyterian Homes about the IDA selling bonds for expansion of Presbyterian Homes facilities in the county. Haygood said the IDA could earn fees from that transaction.
Update On Dawson Park Funding
At the IDA meeting earlier this month, Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell, a member of the IDA, said the county is prepared to spend $25 million it has in hand to launch Dawson Park.
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| Bernardi And Daniell 1/27/2026 |
That money will be used for site preparation, infrastructure, and up to eight sports fields, Daniell said at the meeting on Tuesday, held in the North High Shoals Room of the county Administrative Building.
Daniell said that the estimates of costs are not yet fixed, and it could be that the park will open with only six fields.
Separate from those calculations of cost of the fields is the type of surface on those fields. The cost estimates Daniell used assumes the fields will have natural grass.
The request of the IDA is that it give the county $500,000 per field, or up to $4 million for eight fields. That money will allow the county to use the fields as a first step toward promotion of sports tourism.
The county will need $8 million for an additional eight fields and an estimated $32 million for a gymnasium, Daniell said.
Funding Options
Daniell said on Tuesday that the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that voters will be asked to approve in May includes $24 million for parks and recreational facilities, and $10 million of that is to be used for Dawson Park.
That revenue will come in over the six-year span of the tax, and the calculations of the economic returns from sports tourism that the county has reviewed to date have assumed that Dawson Park after five years will have 16 fields and the gym in place.
Daniell said there are two options the county is considering to raise the $40 million for the additional eight fields and the gym.
The first is for the Board of Commissioners to ask voters in a referendum to approve a General Obligation Bond for Dawson Park, as they did in 2002 for construction of Oconee Veterans Park.
The second, according to Daniell, is for the Board of Commissioners to ask the IDA to issue the bonds, with the county using the facilities in some type of lease purchase arrangement.
The county is responsible for payment of the bonds, whether issued after a referendum or by the IDA.
“What you really are saying,” County Attorney Haygood noted, “are we going to let the public decide this? Or is the Board (of Commissioners) going to decide?”
Daniell said it was a matter of the comfort level of the five members of the Board of Commissioners.
Role Of IDA
The meeting on Tuesday began with a discussion of the role of the Industrial Development Authority.
IDA Member Rick Waller, who had chaired the body in the past, said his view is that the IDA should play a key role in the development activities of the county, as it did in the past.
Though Waller had initiated the discussion of the IDA spending the $5.4 million it has in reserve and had offered sports tourism as a development strategy, he said he was reluctant to give all of that money to the county for development of Dawson Park.
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| Toole And Bernardi 1/27/2026 |
Waller said he wanted to find a way “to generate some revenue for the IDA...So whether you use $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, or $5 million, then we're just sitting here waiting to die on the vine, you might say, with no income or revenue coming in,” he said.
“I mean the purpose of the IDA is basically a finance organization,” Daniell said. “I don't think the IDA has ever had to have money to put into bringing in a economic development project.”
“If you go back and look at everything that was done,” Daniell said. “All that was financed and put in motion by the Commission funding those bonds.”
The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority is a separate legal entity listed in the Georgia Constitution, with Daniell as Commission Chair, Bernardi as Chamber President, Brodrick, as mayor of Watkinsville, and Janet Jones, as mayor of Bogart, designated as members. (Jones did not attend any of the meetings at which sports tourism was discussed.)
The Board of Commissioners appoints two citizen members to the IDA. Waller is one of those two, and IDA Chair Brock Toole is the other. Toole independently is an elected member of the Oconee County Board of Education.
“I think you can have both of what you just said,” Toole said responding to both Waller and Daniell.
“I was sitting here thinking about the history,” County Attorney Haygood said. He also serves as the attorney for the IDA.
“What's always happened is when a project came up, the county put the money up for the IDA to be able to do what it needed to do," Haygood said. "The money came from the county being willing to participate in economic development.”
The IDA voted unanimously to give the county up to $4 million from the $5.4 million reserve for the cost of synthetic turf on the eight fields and to request that Bernardi “get some proposals for what a strategic plan for sports tourism countywide would look like.”
Presbyterian Homes
As the meeting was coming to an end, County Attorney Haygood said “there's a possibility, I'd say strong probability, that we'd have to have a called meeting at some point in the next couple weeks.”
“Presbyterian Homes is going to seek some additional financing,” he said, and then, nodding to Waller, “They will be coming through us to issue the bonds, which means the fee, so (it will) generate a little bit of income.”
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| Haygood 1/27/2026 |
Haygood said he has been talking to a representative of Presbyterian Homes “for two or three months now, but I've not yet seen documents or details just yet.” The IDA issued bonds for Presbyterian Homes in 2018.
According to county tax records, on Jan. 27 of last year Westminster Presbyterian Homes Inc. of Quitman purchased just less than 30 acres on Langford Estates Place off Virgin Langford Road for $4.5 million from The Fairways at 316 LLC.
Oconee Medical Properties LLC, developer of the complex of medical facilities around Virgil Langford Road, the Oconee Connector, and Jennings Mill Road, transferred the property to The Fairways At 316 LLC in 2015.
In 2021, the county granted a rezone to The Fairways At 316 LLC for a an assisted living community that was never built.
Guy Herring, director of Planning and Code Enforcement for Oconee County, said in an email on Jan. 23 that “We do not have a submittal for plan review yet” for the property purchased by Presbyterian Homes.
“The engineer may be in the design phase to submit for permitting, but we do not have a submittal,” he wrote. “My understanding is that it will be a satellite location with cottages and amenities and thus will not require any changes to the current zoning.”
Herring wrote today (Jan. 29) that he still had not received any materials for review from Presbyterian Homes.
Presbyterian Homes is marketing the property at present to potential residents.
Video
The video below is of he entire meeting of the IDA.
Discussion of Dawson Park began immediately.
Haygood made his brief comments about Presbyterian Homes at 50:49 in the video.
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