Bartow County Commissioner Clarence Brown made bringing more jobs to Bartow his focus during Wednesday’s public meeting after he authorized a memorandum that, with the collaboration of several local governments, will begin development as well as incentives for the creation of a large sports and recreation complex in Emerson.

The 1,380-acre development, known as LakePoint Sporting Community and Town Center, will house baseball, soccer and lacrosse fields as well as a building for basketball, volleyball, wrestling and cheerleading.

The development, said Brown, is estimated to bring 2,000 jobs to the area as well as estimated 3 million visitors annually and could be one of the county’s largest employers.

It will be a joint effort between the city of Emerson, Bartow County Development Authority, the Cartersville-Bartow County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Bartow County Tax Assessor and Lakepoint Land LLC.

A document finalizing plans should be complete by the end of this month, said County Administrator Steve Bradley.

In addition, the commissioner declared the need for and approved creating an additional Joint Development Authority for the upcoming Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax renewals in efforts to retire the debt on Highland 75 — an industrial park owned jointly with the city — on Great Valley Road near Interstate 75.

Bradley said that by reducing the amount of debt owed on the property, the city and county could discount the property so it becomes “more competitive” with other local industrial areas. The authority will look at solutions for debt reduction and elimination through the 2014 SPLOST.

“We’ve had a company come who wanted to come in and utilized the space, but we couldn’t discount the property so they went elsewhere,” said Bradley. “It’s really all about the jobs. We’ve got to help fix and support our local economy.”

Several city and county representatives were named to the new board of joint development. From the city, they included Greg Frisbee, Lamar Pendley, David Caswell and Malcom Cooley, and from the county, Carolos Calhoun, Ronnie Evans, Ed Bush and Eric Strickland.  

Also at the meeting:

• Bill Hix, Patrick Nelson and Wade Morris were re-appointed to the Bartow County Planning Commission.

• The Commissioner also authorized making appropriate updates to the County’s Hazard Mitigation Plans. Johnny Payne, director of Bartow County’s Emergency Management Agency, said the county has to update the plan every 5 years to comply with federal requirements.

Payne added they create the plan to deal with local distasters, flooding and other emergency situations and if a problem were to arise, the county could get federal financial backing and grants.