GULF SHORES, Ala. – To further cultivate and keep a burgeoning summer baseball/softball tournament business, the City Council recently OK’d some upgrades for Sims Park in downtown.

Initially, the council agreed to spend just under $20,000 for the engineering and architecture for a new concession stand to replace the 40-year old building there now. The entire structure will end up costing the city about $250,000.

“This is part of a crucial project,” Public Works Director Mark Acreman said. “It would be about a 2,600-square-foot building with air conditioning, men’s and women’s restrooms and storage for all the equipment, sporting goods and equipment as well as a concession area in a portion of that building as well.

“This will allow us to determine what budget we feel comfortable with and expand it and try to build it if we need to fit into a budget.”

Mayor Robert Craft said the money is available for the project and the initial phase of design and engineering will give them an amount to budget.

“We are prepared to build if we can get it designed,” Craft said.

Hundreds of teams come to both Gulf Shores and Orange Beach all summer long to play tournaments and enjoy the amenities of the resort towns. Sometimes there aren’t enough fields and the games are sent out of town.

“One of the things that we were up against as you know is when teams come to town, you get to a certain saturation point and they have to go to other communities to play,” Director of Recreation and Cultural Affairs Grant Brown said. “And that could end up going to Robertsdale and that’s a little far away for people who come here to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach they don’t want to go that far away to play their games.”

Sims Park which is used for city league play is a good facility, Brown said, it just needs some upgrades.

“So if we can enhance Sims Park, the fields are excellent,” Brown said. “We may have to slightly enlarge one field. But if we can enhance the restrooms and the experience these people. We’re gaining size for our youth sports all the time. But we’d also have when our youth is not utilizing this field, to rent this location more often as a stable rent.”

Sims is sometimes used during the tournaments, Brown said, but the improvements will make it more attractive for the visitors.

“Right now it’s just used as overflow,” Brown said. “This is another location to put these extra teams on so we use Sims Park. The area is just not a fresh area. We have problems with the restrooms, the toilets don’t work. It’s just inadequate.

“If we can get a quality service there we’d be able to have, not just for our community, for these out-of-town teams. We’d be able to keep them in our area. That’s one of the goals.”

The tournament teams, Brown said, give a huge boost to the local economy.

“Just one portion of our summer business, he USSSA baseball and softball generated 41,000 room nights and that’s $15 million economic impact,” he said. “About 50 percent is overnight lodging and revenues that come off of that and the other is what they are spending while they are here.”

Brown said the restrooms in the new building will face kids’ park and will be used for that facility as well. Improvements needed to the playing fields are minimal, he said.

“We’ve had some trees removed to improve the fields out there and expand the maintenance area to shield that better and create a better entry to the park area,” he said. “The Bodenhamer parking lot is kind of turned into the main entrance.”