LAWTON – The Lawton Youth Sports Trust Authority has a new deadline for closing on the sale of property for the city’s proposed indoor youth sports complex.
The authority voted unanimously Aug. 8 to extend the closing deadline, which had been set for the end of July, for another 30 days. The new deadline is Aug. 31.
The extension will give the authority time to finish clean-up work on a previous transfer of ownership of the property, Chairman Brian Henry said in an email to a Southwest Ledger reporter.
“That is quite a bit of land, with multiple legal descriptions and quite a few easements that have to be sorted through,” he said.
Earlier this year, the authority voted to acquire almost 85 acres of land on the southwest corner of East Gore Boulevard and Southeast 45th Street for the sports complex. The Frank L. Richards 1992 Revocable Living Trust currently owns 47.4 acres of the property, and Richards’ widow, Donna Richards Cooper, and her husband, Dr. Mickey Cooper, own the remaining 37.59 acres.
The authority will pay $1 million altogether for the site. About $700,000 will come out of the authority’s budget, and the rest will come from a $3 million grant from the McMahon Foundation.