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Dolphin Club Decision Deferred
By MELISSA WEBBCorrespondent
Mark Cleveland, owner of the Brentwood Dolphin Club, presented plans for an expansion of the facility to the Brentwood City Planning Commission at their meeting on Monday, Nov. 5. The expansion was to include an 82,000 SF indoor practice court facility for tennis, basketball and volleyball.
Cleveland met with much opposition from the residents of Carondelet, the neighborhood where the Dolphin Club is located. After considerable discussion, the request for approval of the facility was deferred. Cleveland intends to bring redesigned plans back before the Planning Commission in January.
“The Planning Commission meeting was a packed house,” said Barry Gregory, a resident of Carondelet. “I don’t think one person from our neighborhood was for the plan. Something like that doesn’t fit in our neighborhood. A community swimming pool is one thing, but this is not the place for commercial development.”
Gregory’s main concern is for the traffic coming in and out of the neighborhood that he describes as “already so heavy.”
“Anything that is going to cause more traffic, I am against,” he said.
In reference to the traffic concerns, Cleveland, through the Dolphin Club, recently donated about $240,000 worth of property (approximately 11 acres) to the City of Brentwood for improvements to the intersection of Wilson Pike and Old Smyrna Road. Those improvements, which Cleveland says he will support no matter what the decision on the project is, are not enough, in Gregory’s opinion.
“Traffic is congested and dangerous all along Wilson Pike,” Gregory said. “It’s not just about the intersection; that entire road needs improvement. I’m not sure how they will ever be able to improve it enough to justify commercial development here.”
Another Carondelet resident, Shannon McDonald, has also spoken out against the project. She predicts that, even with a redesign of the building, residents would still be opposed to its construction.
“Those of us opposed to the plan are still of the same mind, no matter what the redesign of the project is,” said McDonald. “The Brentwood 2020 plan showed that 77-percent of the citizens of Brentwood did not want commercial development within residential areas. While the zoning, as it is, makes no distinction between a neighborhood swim club and a facility like the one proposed, commercial development is just that; commercial.”
Gregory supports the property being turned over for more residential development, rather than an expanded recreational facility.
“I do not have a problem with changing the use of this property back to residential, if it is not generating enough income as a pool,” he said. “Even if the property is divided up and more houses are put there, residential is the only type of development that needs to happen here.”
Selling the property for residential development is not on Cleveland’s radar as a possible use for the Dolphin Club property.
“If you look at this project logically, this is really an exciting piece of property for what it is zoned for,” Cleveland said. “This is a great piece of real estate and it is worth more to the world as service institutional zoning. I plan to move forward with a plan for this property that is consistent with its current zoning. Having a building that supports year-round use is my number-one priority.”
Cleveland describes plans to redesign the building as a “modest reduction in size” with a “more focused” plan. Without being granted an exception from the city to have 100-foot setbacks for the building, Cleveland says he is not hopeful that the Dolphin Club pool can be saved.
“When we started out on this project, keeping the pool was very important to us,” he said. “Even with six courts, with the parking regulations, we will not be able to build around the pool without a 100 foot exception.”
In the meantime, Cleveland says he is open to other ideas to better the property, including having the city and or county maintain it as a park.
“Having the city buy this as a park would be very exciting,” he said. “Then, it could become a city-supported athletic facility. I know it is easy to resist the size of the building at first; it feels very big and tall. I have even heard some ideas that a bowling alley would be more appropriate here.”
Above all, Cleveland hopes that he has the chance to realize his vision of “supporting kids.”
“I hope I can sit down with those who are against this project and talk with them about how much our community needs this,” he said, mentioning that he has also received several more calls from local churches and other groups expressing a need for the facility. “My guess is that many of the people who are against this don’t have kids or have kids that are grown, so they don’t see the need for this facility the way we do. They would prefer to see no change at all, and that’s not going to happen.”
Correspondent Melissa Webb can be reached at melw@charterinternet.com.
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