The Salem City Council Monday night will consider selling land at the corner of West Main and Selmaville Road scheduled to become the city’s soccer complex.
City Manager Rex Barbee says a local realtor has a client interested in the purchase of the 23 acres for an industrial type use that could see as many as 30 jobs in the initial phase of the operations.
Barbee says the property is currently listed as surplus city property and since bids were sought earlier without success, the council is now free to accept an offer.
The Monday night city council agenda includes a bid opening and then an executive session and possible action on the sale of the land.
Barbee says the city has no other property suitable for the soccer complex, but he knows of some land the city could purchase that might be less expensive to develop. He notes it will be up to the city council on how to proceed with a soccer complex if the council agrees to sell the land. There is $100,000 in this year’s budget for work on the complex.
Barbee says the size of the proposed complex at Selmaville and West Main has been dropped from eight to six fields due to the estimated development cost. Barbee says the eight field plan could cost the city $600,000 to $700,000 due to the extensive amount of dirt work that is needed. He notes the city’s only expense to date is for the engineering study.
The council meeting starts at six Monday night at Salem City Hall.
