The skate park building finally has a new tenant. Here’s what’s coming

The Harrison County Board of Supervisors on Monday picked Kickmaster Coast Athletic Club to lease the old skate park on DeBuys Road in Biloxi.

“We’re very excited with this company,” said District 5 Supervisor Connie Rockco. She said the vote to choose Kickmaster was unanimous.

The lease also needs the approval of the Biloxi school board because the district owns the land the park is built on. The supervisors also received proposals from Planet Ice, which wanted to bring ice hockey to the park; A&A Entertainment, which wanted to put an indoor roller rink, outdoor skate park and bike park and walking trail there; and Jehovah Ministries, which wanted to bring a multimedia broadcast network to the park.

“I’m pretty ecstatic, said Kevin Mattina of Kickmaster, who also works at the family-owned Mattina Insurance Agency in Biloxi.

He said he hoped to have a lease signed, approval from the school board and some work done on the facility in time to have an open house on Fourth of July weekend. The facility has been closed since a film studio that had been leasing it folded last year.

He said early on, Kickmaster hopes to have soccer inflatables installed and have soccer and football camps scheduled. He said they plan to refurbish the tennis courts and install basketball goals as well. It also will have footgolf, where players kick the soccer ball along a soccer-sized golf course and into soccer-sized holes. They also will have sports camp and other training classes.

The proposal said the indoor pavilion could hosts events as small as birthday parties to as large as the Arnold Sports World Kids and Teens Expo, which drew 5,000 to the Kickmaster center in Columbus, Ohio, in March.

Kickmaster will have a five-year lease with two five-year renewal options, according to the proposal. It will pay the county $5,000 a year for the first three years, $5,450 a year in years four and five, $5,777 in years six through eight and $6,297 in years nine through 10. Kickmaster will pay the cost of installation of its equipment, any modifications it requires and it will maintain the grounds. It plans to have the facility open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 7 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.

This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 3:00 PM with the headline "The skate park building finally has a new tenant. Here’s what’s coming."