Article date: January 26, 2001

Foundation agrees to $11,250 share to help fund new fields on redeveloped Avtex site

By Ashley May

The U.S. Soccer Foundation’s recent informal agreement to pay half of the design cost for a 30-acre soccer complex on part of the redeveloped Avtex Fibers Superfund site "starts the clock" on the $3.6 million project, Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Stephen A. Heavener said Thursday.

Heavener called U.S. Soccer Foundation President Herb Goibbi’s approval of the foundation’s $11,250 share "the first tangible evidence that this thing is getting started."

The soccer foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency announced a cooperative effort to redevelop and recycle Superfund sites in July 1999, and named Avtex as the first in a series of redevelopment initiatives. The Avtex soccer complex is intended to be the flagship project for the initiative, but until last week, the project was still just a promise, Heavener said.

The proposed professional-level soccer park met widespread support from Warren County residents, and both the Front Royal Town Council and county Board of Supervisors have agreed to pay their share of construction costs.

Heavener got permission from the EDA board of directors in December to write a letter to the foundation as a formal request to get started on the project.

He proposed that the soccer foundation pay half of the $22,500 design fee to engage John Lewis of Winchester engineering firm Painter-Lewis, the architect of the rest of the Avtex redevelopment project. The EDA felt that hiring Painter-Lewis to design all aspects of the redevelopment was the smartest approach, and the soccer foundation has agreed, Heavener said.

Heavener said he suspected that the delay was due more to the newness of the project than a "cooling off" by the soccer foundation. But told the supervisors that he would ask for "political help" if the foundation didn’t respond to the letter.

The supervisors have already committed to building about $300,000 in infrastructure before the site is developed, but then expects the soccer foundation to step in spending 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 and administration building with restrooms, full utilities, paved and landscaped parking, bleachers, lighting, and play ground equipment," Heavener has said. That portion of the project that has yet to be funded.

Heavener’s letter requested the financial commitment as an assurance that the soccer foundation intends to follow through with the promise, he said, and Giobbi’s approval marks the beginning of the design process.

The soccer foundation’s engineers will work closely with Painter-Lewis in the design stages, which Heavener expected will be complete in about 90 days.

"We hope to have bid documents ready in the spring," he said.