Article date: February 02, 2001

By Ashley May

A professional-level soccer complex to be built on 30 acres of the Avtex Fibers Superfund site will soon have a name, but only after the Front Royal Town Council and the Warren County Board of Supervisors approve it.

An ad-hoc committee of county officials and residents has narrowed 57 different ideas for the complex’s name to five, Warren County Parks and Recreation Director Dan Lenz said.

"There were a lot of good ones, we were pleased," Lenz said, although he declined to list the five finalists.

Lenz, Shenandoah District Supervisor Benjamin H. "Ben" Weddle, Fork district Supervisor John E. Vance and members of the soccer-playing community served on the committee, Lenz said.

The committee recently decided to cull the list of 57 entries by voting for members favorite names, and the top five names were determined. Lenz said the votes for the top five were close, so the final choice isn’t obvious — although the decision is up to the board and council, he said.

The contest was sponsored by the parks department and the Front Royal Warren County Youth Soccer League, which collected entries between Dec.1 and Jan.12.

Plans are being designed to transform the rocky, bumpy soccer fields of the Ed Stump Park into a 30-acre professional-quality soccer complex, expected to be the showcase project for a national initiative planned by the U.S. Soccer Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA and foundation formed a partnership for the redevelopment and recycling of federal Superfund sites and announced the Front Royal project, the first undertaken by the program, in 1999.

A field in the park will retain Stump’s name, but in October, on the recommendation of the Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority, the supervisors decided to rename the entire park. Because of the importance of community ownership and pride, they decided to get feedback from the community on the subject, they said.

Of the entire $3.6 million project, Warren County has committed to provide about $300,000 to get necessary groundwork in place. The soccer foundation has agreed to then to step in and spend about $1.7 million to prepare the site and construct several top-of -the-line soccer fields.

The second phase of the project, estimated at $1.5 million, is the building of " a full competition ready complex that includes an administration building with restrooms, full utilities, paved and landscaped parking, bleachers, lighting, and playground equipment," Stephen A. Heavener, Executive Director of the EDA, wrote in a report to the council and supervisors.