By RICHARD ESSEX
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
The City of Westfield will remain the owner of the Grand Park campus, but the day-to-day operation of the facility will now be handled by a newly formed private organization.
The announcement of the new management was made at the sports complex Tuesday.
“We don’t want to sell the park, but we are interested in a public-private management arrangement,” current Mayor Andy Cook said.
The understanding is a basic agreement that the newly formed Grand Park Sports & Entertainment will take over the management of Grand Park once all the details are worked out.
The city is asking for $300 million over the next 40 years. Mayor Cook is leaving office in two weeks, and Mayor-elect Scott Willis will have to work out the details.
“Well, we have together the different entities and we have to agree on which comes first, the chicken or the egg, and lay out a timeline for how that development will happen,“ Willis said.
The team behind Grand Park Sports & Entertainment consists of Ersal Ozdemir, the owner of Keystone Group and Indy Eleven soccer team; Greg Stremlaw, president of Indy Eleven and Indy Sports and Entertainment; and Ken Kocher, the owner of Bullpen Ventures.
Kocher’s company has run the baseball operation at Grand Park from the beginning. They are hoping to turn Grand Park into a live-work-play-and-stay complex with retail, hotels, restaurants, and multifamily housing – all on the Grand Park campus.
“We want to create a better experience here at Grand Park, we have our own initiative that we want to push,” Willis said. “So, both sides need to come together we need to develop time and commitments in how that will happen.”
Indy Eleven and the Keystone group are knee-deep in the development of a new soccer stadium in downtown Indianapolis, which Ozdemir says will not distract from this project. He says the focus of Grand Park will remain youth sports-oriented.
“We are in a unique position the best sports complex for a true work-live-play environment in the country that is our vision that is our goal,” Ozdemir said.
If this deal is completed and all parties agree to whatever terms need to be worked out, the city told I-Team 8 that it is expected to pay off its debt to build Grand Park.
Next year, the Westfield City Council will need to approve the deal in order for it to go into effect.