Article date: December 19, 2000

Heavener sends letter to foundation asking for $11,250 to help fund park at Avtex site

By Ashley May

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority is challenging the U.S. Soccer Foundation to stop talking about co-sponsoring a professional grade soccer complex and start paying for it.

The proposed $3.6 million soccer facility was announced in July 1999 as the showcase project for the U.S. Soccer Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency’s initiative to redevelop and recycle Superfund sites. The soccer park, planned for 30 acres of the former Avtex Fibers Superfund site, was the first such project proposed.

On Friday, EDA Executive Director Stephen A. Heavener and the EDA board of directors agreed to send a letter asking the soccer foundation to pay for half of the project design fee, or $11,250 of $22,500, to John Lewis of the Winchester engineering firm Painter-Lewis.

Heavener’s letter to soccer foundation Executive Director Herb Giobbi makes a formal request that the soccer foundation share the design cost. The board of directors agreed with Heavener that the cost sharing would assure the soccer foundation’s financial commitment to the project, board members said.

"The EDA plans to engage Painter-Lewis at the January 26^th directors meeting, but will not do so unless we receive a written confirmation that the Soccer Foundation will participate financially," it says.

"The Front Royal community has been anxiously awaiting commencement of this important project since it was announced in July, 1999 and it cannot start unit the financial commitment is made," it says.

Local costs, estimated at about $300,000 would pay for irrigation lines, a storm water management system, sidewalks and curb and gutter, and sidewalks for the complex, Heavener said. About nine acres of Ed Stump Park also must be purchased at $9,000 per acre by the bankruptcy trustee, he said.

Warren County has agreed to get the infrastructure in place before the site is developed, but then expects the soccer foundation to step in and do its part, Heavener said.

Once the complex is designed and the infrastructure in place, the soccer foundation is prepared to spend about $1.7 million to prepare the site and construct several top-of -the-line soccer fields, Giobbi has said.

Then, the second phase of the project, estimated at $1.5 million, is the construction of "a full competition ready complex that includes an administration building with rest rooms, full utilities, paved and landscaped parking, bleachers, lighting and playground equipment," Heavener has said. That portion of the project has yet to be funded.

The Front Royal Warren County Youth Soccer League has supported the project, and encouraged the Warren County Board of Supervisors to fund the infrastructure improvements, an estimated 10 percent of the total project cost.

The complex is expected to become a significant economic development project for the county, Heavener has said.

Heavener said that he and the directors hope the letter will prompt the soccer foundation to "do something."

"We’ll see if we can’t make something happen," Heavener said at Friday’s meeting.