They say you have to have money to make money. Americaís Park may be one of those cases, as far as Rowan County is concerned.
Mooresville officials broke ground Tuesday on a $25 million youth baseball facility that might have come to Salisbury, Charlotte or a number of other places instead.
The 170-acre complex will have 25 lighted baseball fields, dozens of cabins to house teams and more. Investors say it could pump more than $80 million a year into the local economy as players and families travel to the park from all over the country.
Yep, you have to have money to make money. But determination and teamwork can overcome a lot of obstacles, and Mooresville-Iredell leaders seem rich in that way, too.
Project investors reportedly travelled to 32 cities in 13 states to hear pitches for the park, and Mooresville came out on top.

Lou Presutti, the mastermind behind Americaís Park, has called Salisbury home since he moved here in 1985.
ěI view Salisbury as the best little town in America,î Presutti says.
From his office at 330 S. Main St. here, Presutti has developed and run a youth baseball center in Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, since 1996. Itís called Cooperstown Dreams Park.
For several years, heís been looking for a site in the middle of the country for a bigger park. He says he tried to put together a deal in Rowan, but to his disappointment it never worked out.
Why not Rowan? The talkative Presutti goes quiet for a moment. ěYouíll have to talk to the city and county about that,î he says.
But his words flow freely on the subject of Mooresvilleís Town Board of Commissioners and Iredell County officials ó words like ěwonderful, ěincredibly helpfulî and ěpositive.î The planning board, he says, is ěsecond to none.î
Presutti has millions of reasons to be impressed with Mooresville. The Mooresville Convention & Visitorís Bureau committed $5.4 million to finance Americaís Park. The South Iredell Economic Development Corp. also chipped in $1 million.
Presuttiís partners in the venture include Todd Hines, a Mooresville native who owns Carolinaís Baseball Center, an indoor training facility in Charlotte.
The other partner is the owner of the property where the park will be built off Rankin Hill Road, between Mooresville and Troutman ó Jeff Cernuto of Mooresville-based Princeton Management.
Local government kicked in incentives, too.
The stars aligned for Presutti in Mooresville ó the stars and the financing and the property.

The people I contacted with the city of Salisbury and Rowan county government didnít recall talking to Presutti about his plans. But Robert Van Geons and James Mecham, directors of our local economic development and tourism agencies, did.
Presutti looked at several possible sites for the park in Rowan, Van Geons says.
ěWe would have loved to have had them,î he says. ěWe didnít have those kind of resources.î
Mecham, whose agency is funded by hotel occupancy tax revenue, came to the same conclusion ó as much as heíd like to have thousands of people crowding into local motels. When Mecham and Van Geons initially met with Presutti more than a year ago, local governments already had obligations for school construction, a jail annex, communications towers, fiber to the home.
It didnít seem like a good time to suggest committing millions to a baseball park.

Van Geons and Mechamís assessment is probably right for Rowan. Baseball has been a sore subject here ever since the county built Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium and attendance fell so far short of projections.
But Presutti has a track record and a business model that Iredell leaders believe in. Several of them have travelled to Cooperstown, N.Y., to see his park there.
Ron Johnson, chairman of the Mooresville Convention and Visitors Bureau, says he was impressed with what he saw in Cooperstown and is excited about landing a center like that in Iredell County.
The tract is on the eastern side of Lake Norman in an area that has yet to be developed ó a prime spot.
Mooresvilleís competitive edge goes beyond location and money. The sense of cooperation among the local governments and agencies is strong, Johnson says. ěWeíre just like one person,î he says. ěEverybody was saying, ëWhat can we do to make it work?í … That is a plus for us. We all work together.î
Officials in Newberry, Fla., have also pulled together to land a Presutti project. In early March, they held a groundbreaking ceremony for the 16-field Nations Baseball Park that was very similar to Mooresvilleís, judging by news accounts.
Presutti says his desire to promote baseball goes back to his youth and his familyís love of the game. And now it reaches out to Cooperstown, Mooresville and Newberry ó all from an office in Salisbury.

Elizabeth Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.