The Hampton City Council held a workshop meeting Monday night and was informed that a member of the Hampton soccer board had recently asked for an update on a proposed recreation complex after hearing that Sheffield may be getting one.
City manager Ron Dunt provided a recap that in 2020 the city got an estimate of 8-million dollars for a rec complex. In 2023, Dunt asked an engineer for a scaled-back plan that included only a few soccer fields and a gravel parking lot, and that was estimated to be between 500-thousand to 600-thousand dollars.
Dunt says with the state focused on reducing cities’ property tax revenues, and Hampton’s rising costs of operations and maintenance of infrastructure, the city must pause before committing to a new quality of life project such as a recreation complex.
Dunt also cautioned that the city will likely be faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars related to the old pharmacy properties.
