WEST OCEAN CITY — An Ocean City church’s effort to redevelop a vast 27-acre site behind the outlet malls in West Ocean City with a recreational sports complex is getting jumpstarted with a fundraising campaign to help finance the project’s early phases.
For about a dozen years, the Ocean City Baptist Church (OCBC) has been exploring potential uses for a 27-acre site it owns behind the outlets in West Ocean City and adjacent to its Seaside Christian Academy campus. Already, a portion of the site is home to the OCBC’s Upward Soccer youth program and the long-term plan includes a belief the area could be expanded to include several fields and other indoor-outdoor amenities capable of hosting large regional tournaments and camps.
Back in 2006, the OCBC, under the direction of Pastor Sean Davis, started the Upward Soccer program in West Ocean City with just 42 young players. The program has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade-plus and now includes over 42 teams. Davis and the OCBC leadership believe that momentum can be built upon with an expansion of the site to include more and more outdoor fields and ultimately a gymnasium and multi-purpose building to host indoor camps, events and tournaments.
In order to jumpstart that vision with a fiscal shot in the arm, Davis and the OCBC have started a Go Fund Me page to help with fundraising for the early phases of the project. The proposed sports complex could serve the dual purpose of promoting safe, family-friendly, faith-based events and activities for local youth while creating camps and tournaments to take advantage of the growing youth sports-related tourism trends, both of which are stated goals of the town of Ocean City and Worcester County.
“This growth has led us to believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg with what we can accomplish,” the OCBC’s Go Fund Me campaign for the project states. “Our vision of a West Ocean City Sports Complex will host countless camps, leagues and tournaments. More sports means more families and more families means more economic impact for our community.”
According to the Go Fund Me page, the church’s vision for the project includes two phases, the first of which is adding more fields to allow for more camps, leagues and tournaments. The second stage includes adding a gymnasium and multi-purpose building for indoor sports.
The OCBC is currently in the first stage and is looking for sponsors to help make it reality. However, even the early site work comes with a hefty price tag. According to the page, the OCBC is seeking sponsors to help with the cost of tilling, irrigating and seeding the new fields, which comes in at a range of $50,000 to $65,000. The first phase also includes the construction of a concession stand and pavilion with an estimated cost of around $25,000. The Go Fund Me page started by the OCBC has a stated goal of $75,000 in the first phase.
At a time when Worcester County is exploring a youth sports complex capable of hosting large outdoor tournaments and events eight or nine months out of the year and the town of Ocean City is exploring its own options as it attempts to rebrand itself as a youth sports tournament and camp destination, the OCBC’s proposed project could help meet both needs.
While the study commissioned by Worcester County to determine the need for a sports complex somewhere in the county’s north end envisioned a seasonal outdoor facility, the OCBC’s project includes a 50,000-square-foot gymnasium and activity center on site capable of hosting tournaments and events all year.
The OCBC’s vision is a three-legged stool of sorts with one leg being the ownership of the land, another leg being the management of the tournaments and events and a third being the costs of developing the project. The OCBC already has the first two legs of the stool and is now seeking support for the third and final leg.
