JACKSON – Testimony is expected to resume before the Jackson Planning Board on Feb. 4 on an application that proposes the construction of Trophy Park, a multipurpose athletic complex on a 194-acre parcel at the corner of Route 537 and Hawkin Road in Jackson.
The complex would also include a commercial area with three restaurants, a building with retail space and hotel facilities.
As proposed, Trophy Park, an indoor and outdoor complex, would feature 16 baseball and softball fields and batting cages; 10 lacrosse, soccer, field hockey fields and practice fields; a 400,000-square-foot, two-story, 18-court indoor facility for basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and wrestling; and an outdoor stadium with 6,000 seats. The fields will be synthetic turf.
Representatives of Trophy Park said the complex would have the ability to host 2,000 athletes per week. Projections call for almost one million visitors per year from around the United States and other nations who would attend youth athletic tournaments and sports camps such as AAU basketball and baseball tournaments, and soccer, volleyball, track and field and wrestling tournaments.
Trophy Park’s representatives said the athletes would stay in a team hotel while their parents would stay in two hotels on the property. The team hotel will not have a kitchen.
Attorney John J. Jackson III, professional planner Jerome Lange and architect Gregory Cox represented the applicant at the Dec. 3 Planning Board meeting.
An initial discussion between board members and the applicant sought to determine if the Planning Board was the appropriate municipal body to hear the application.
Jackson said he was aware some people may believe the team suites would be de facto dormitory rooms. A municipal ordinance prohibits dormitories in the township. Jackson said Trophy Park is being proposed in accordance with Jackson’s master plan, which is the document that guides development in the municipality.
“The goal of (that plan) is to achieve a pattern of mixed land uses that achieve various community planning objectives, including the provision of quality residential neighborhoods, the protection of natural resources and the economic development of the community,” the attorney said.
“Testimony is going to show our approximately 200-acre parcel is specifically identified in your master plan as an appropriate place for community recreation (and) commercial recreation,” Jackson said.
“Our testimony is going to show we are going to create over 200 permanent jobs, hundreds of construction jobs when we build, and over 1,000 part-time jobs when we are up and running. These are high-end jobs, coaching jobs, jobs as trainers, jobs in the athletic world. For many young athletes, people in high school and college, this is a good type of work and we believe our use is going to foster great training for that type of profession,” he said.
Jackson said one objective of the Trophy Park application is to provide economic development through local employment and to improve Jackson’s commercial ratable base.
“Our testimony is going to show we are going to generate over $2 million per year, or in the neighborhood of $2 million per year in local property taxes with a very minimal drain on local resources. No children (will be) going into the school system, it does not have the type of services many other recreational and commercial sites have. We think we meet that objective perfectly,” Jackson said.
He said Trophy Park would serve local and regional needs.
“Our testimony is going to show the youth sports industry is a $15 billion per year industry. My client believes this is a perfect spot and a perfect location, as does your master plan, to bring in this type of a use to generate a tremendous, tremendous ratable on what is now a vacant parcel which I believes generates something like $100,000 a year in taxes,” the attorney said.
Jackson said because of the economic impact Trophy Park is expected to bring and its close proximity to the Six Flags Great Adventure theme park and other recreation facilities, there will not be an adverse impact on the community.
“(Trophy Park) is the type of (use) that will have a very synergistic relationship with all of the other recreation uses,” he said. “Our concept is that a team will come and stay for a week in the (team) hotel and then play in their tournament … they are not going to play (sports) 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they will go to Great Adventure, they will go to (another recreation facility being constructed on Route 537), they will go to the (Jackson Premium) Outlets, or possibly to the beach, which is not in Jackson, obviously, but (Trophy Park) is not only a local amenity, it is a regional amenity.”
Jackson said the proposed team suites are not dormitories and he said that is “vivid and clear” as defined by Jackson’s dormitory ordinance.
“The team suites are operated by the hotel. So unlike like a conventional dormitory, you check in and have a one-week stay or a five-day stay. It is not like it is part of a school or part of an organization and people actually live there,” Jackson said.
He said the team suites would be available to the general public at all times since they are hotel suites.
Jackson said that according to the municipal definition, a dormitory is an accessory use to a school and the proposed hotel with the team suites is a principal use to the application.
“Anyone can come and stay at our hotel, but you cannot just show up at a university and check in” to a dormitory, he told the board members.
Jackson Township Council President Ken Bressi, who sits on the Planning Board, said there is still “a lot to get to” in the application, but after hearing testimony from the applicant and the definition of hotels and dormitories from the board’s professionals, he made a motion that the application move forward with the hotel as a permitted use.
Board members voted unanimously to hear the application. The Trophy Park application was carried to Feb. 4, which is a tentative date depending on the board’s designated meeting schedule for 2019.
