Watertown supervisor debuts plans for an entertainment complex
Watertown supervisor debuts plans for an entertainment complex: Would Watertown be the location of a sports and entertainment facility the likes of which the North Country has never seen before? The supervisor of the town has stated that not only will it be occurring, but he also has high hopes of getting construction on the project underway by the end of this year.
Since the day he was elected to his position as supervisor of the town of Watertown, twenty years ago, Joel Bartlett has had this goal in mind as a vision and a dream.
“It’s been around 20 years, so quite a time. I’ve gotten older as a result of that,” was the statement that he made.
On the other hand, it is currently more plausible than it has ever been.
“The Thousand Islands Local Development Corporation is going to be the one that owns the property. “They are going to be closing on all of this in approximately thirty days,” Bartlett stated further.
It is all of these things and a great deal more besides.
This mega sports and event center is supposed to have three outdoor and two indoor turf fields, a large number of basketball and volleyball courts, a hydraulic track, two ice sheets of NHL size, a restaurant and bar, 265,000 square feet for conventions and trade shows, 9,000 seats for concerts, and even more amenities.
“We want the developer to be proud of the region, and we want the region to be proud of the developer,” Bartlett said. “We want the region to be proud of this.”
The creator of this product is a business known as Mike Sherman Sports. Anyone who follows sports should be familiar with that moniker.
The Green Bay Packers formerly employed Sherman in the roles of the head coach and general manager. His organization is now working on projects worth approximately $10 billion and has just wrapped up a significant one.
They have recently completed construction on the UBS Arena in Belmont. Sherman referred to that location as the new abode of the New York Islanders.
With eyes here local on youth, high school, and college sports, Bartlett says that the gap in the market from Ottawa to Binghamton will not only bring hundreds of thousands of people but that those families will spend upwards of $140 million a year, providing a boost to sales and bed tax – with an estimated 93,000 overnight stays – as well as creating jobs, both on-site and in construction.
Statements
“It’s going to be a tremendous advantage to not only this Watertown area and Jefferson County, but to all of the 1000 Islands region, both north and south of that,” he added. “Not only is it going to be a benefit to this area, but it’s going to be a benefit to this entire region.”
It is all something that he thinks can be done without a single tax dollar coming from a local taxing agency, however, there will be a request made to the state of New York for $30 million of the final cost of $80 million.
“You could consider those tax dollars in a roundabout manner, but you’ve got to look at it this way, if that money is not spent here, it’s going to be spent someplace else,” he said. “You could look at it this way, if that money is not spent here, it’s going to be spent somewhere else.”
Bartlett said that even though he is certain that New York State will be up to the challenge, there are backup plans in place to ensure that this project will move on regardless of the outcome.
According to Bartlett, the construction of the complex might begin as soon as the latter half of this year. If everything goes according to plan, it is scheduled to open in the month of January 2024.