Gainesville — The proposed raze of Locke Field in favor of an apartment complex is not yet a certainty, Gainesville officials said this week.

A leasing of the historic, city-owned, nine-acre site to Richard Brown Property for the development of a $10 million facility of 144 units, Gainesville City Council members explained, would bring revenue to the city and develop its downtown area in a manner mirroring areas of Denton, Plano and Dallas.

“Nothing the council does here is meant to diminish the memories of that field,” City Manager Barry Sullivan said Friday. “We’re just trying to do something that we feel will move Gainesville forward.”

But though city residents will have more opportunities to speak against the development — particularly during the public comments section of city council meetings — the only remaining votes that can make or break the proposal belong to the council members, and their decisions remain unknown.

Tuesday’s council meeting will include a proposed resolution that officially deems Fair Park, home of Locke Field, usable for entities other than a park.

Sullivan said if the resolution passes, the next step will be a formal contract process with Richard Brown Property.

The resolution, however, may also be denied or tabled.

“I never tell you which way the council’s going to go,” he said Friday. “Council doesn’t discuss it; they don’t call each other about it. They don’t do that and I don’t call them.”

Sullivan said if the development moves forward, Locke Field may not be dismantled until April or May, following the end of baseball season. He said components of the field, such as bleachers or scoreboards, could later be appropriated by local school districts for athletic use.

The city manager also said the public already voted on this matter during the city’s general election of May 2010, and the results enabled council to take whatever leasing steps lay ahead. In that election, voters gave a majority “yes” to one question regarding the future of Fair Park property while voting against another.

The first question on the ballot, which allowed for the sale of the property, failed; 153 votes were in favor of a sale while 219 votes were against. The second question, which allows the lease of the property, got a majority “yes” by a narrow margin: 192 votes were cast in favor of leasing while 166 votes were against.

The voters’ permission to allow a lease paved the way for where Fair Park may be headed.

“This is an official election that occurred to vote it or not,” Sullivan said.

However, a new apartment complex was not always the main consideration. Gainesville Economic Development Corporation (GEDC) Executive Director Kent Sharp explained Thursday that in 2010, during the general election season, the Fair Park property was a proposed location for a new movie theater in Gainesville.

“Of course, the movie theater ended up going near the outlet mall,” Sharp said. “But that still cleared this land for leasing.”

And Sharp said a new “market-rate” apartment complex makes a better fit for the land, with its proximity to Interstate 35. He said it was during the 2010-11 timeline that local companies such as Weber Aircraft, Orteq Technologies, Complete Energy Services and Select Energy experienced spikes in workforce.

The employee count of these companies increased by the hundreds, and GEDC data showed that many of the incomes were high five-figure sums.

The problem, he said, was that many of them couldn’t find homes near work and instead began to commute to residences outside Cooke County.

“Would the GEDC be actively pursuing a market-rate, multifamily development in Gainesville on our own will?” Sharp said. “Not unless there was somebody chewing in our ears, saying, ‘Hey — we’ve got a problem in Gainesville.’ And that concern has been brought to us over the last two or three years by our local industries.”

As he did during a Gainesville City Council public hearing on Sept. 18, Sharp cited the county’s unemployment rate of less than 5 percent. He also said the city of Gainesville alone has seen a 78 percent spike in sales tax revenue since September 2011, due to the booming local industries.

But he added that such local progress is hampered when so many local employees are forced to live outside the county and therefore export their incomes.

“That fifty-thousand-dollar paycheck that, today, is made in Gainesville, is, tonight, taken to Denton or Corinth or Lewisville or Sherman,” he said Thursday. “It’s spent at those big-box stores, those Walmarts and Targets and convenience stores. It just makes no sense for us not to address the issue.”