Town, county eye 59-acre site for sports complex

By JUSTIN HARMON/Staff

It wasn’t a disembodied voice whispering “Build it and they will come” into the ears of town and county officials.
That voice belonged to the constituents.
On Oct. 24, town and county leaders met to figure out a way to “ build it” on a 59-acre lot.
Abingdon Town Manager Greg Kelly said the town and county joined forces to find a suitable place to build ball fields to accommodate the growing sports in the county.
“There are simply not enough baseball and soccer fields to practice on and play on,” he said.
Kelly said the search for a suitable area started a year ago with the formation of a committee composed of both town and county officials.
“The committee has met four or five times since that time and they’ve decided on one site,” he said.
According to County Administrator Mark Reeter, the next step is looking at the purchase of the property.
“It’s a matter of negotiating for the property and making the final authorization,” he said.
The site, just two miles outside of town near the Johnson Memorial Hospital Caner Center on Lee Highway is a 59.33 acre lot owned by Clifton Stewart Developers, Kelly said.
Town employees are currently discussing the terms of purchase with the developers and will report their findings the next time the committee meets. From there, assuming the purchase is reasonable and approved, a steering committee for the complex will be established to determine how the facility will be operated, how it will be paid for, who will pay for what and what the facility will look like.
According to Reeter, the project hasn’t been fully planned out yet.
“Obviously it will have multiple new fields,” he said “The scope of the project has not been finalized yet.”
Kelly said the final product would ideally boast seven or eight baseball fields and six to eight soccer fields.
He said the purchase of the land would likely be cost around $2 million and $800,000-$1 million would be needed to prepare the property for construction. The next phase would be the actual structures at the complex: fields, dugouts, parking lots, fencing and the like. Kelly said a price tag for the remainder of the complex was difficult to guess.
“I couldn’t even being to speculate how much that would cost,” he said.
Justin Harmon can be reached at 628-7101 or