By Sara M. Crickenberger for RealWV

Officials began preparing the land they purchased for a sportsplex nine years ago. If all goes as currently planned, Lowell Rose said the best-case scenario is that some portions of the facility could open in 2028, once additional funds are raised. Photo by Sara M. Crickenberger.

Project moves back toward the top of the agenda

After more than five years with little progress on the proposed multi-sport facility off Harper Road, Greenbrier County Commission President Lowell Rose says the commission is moving the project toward the top of its agenda. 

Rose said the project “slid to the back burner” during COVID and the expansion and renovation of the Greenbrier County Courthouse and the Greenbrier County Health Department. But it is now making its way back toward the top of the County Commission’s agenda. 

The Real WV reached out to Commissioners Richie Holliday and Woody Hanna to discuss the project and where it stands on their list of priorities. Neither of them responded to our request for an interview.

If all goes as currently planned, Rose said the best-case scenario is that the proposed sports facility, which the Commission refers to as the Sportsplex, or some portions of it, might be available for use by the summer of 2028. 

The proposed Sportsplex is slated to include baseball/softball and soccer fields, walking trails, and other recreational facilities that Rose said could include shooting and archery ranges, disc golf, and/or other offerings. 

Project costs continue to grow

Since 2016, the Commission has spent $2.56 million on the project, according to documents provided by the County Commission, to purchase the property; pay for the development plans; clear and excavate the land; build drainage and water retention systems and roads; fence the property; and pay for other expenses. 

Aside from the land acquisition and survey costs, the county has paid 12 vendors for costs related to the project. The largest total amounts have gone to Kanawha Stone at $1,486,930, Baldwin Excavating at $485,599, Terradon Corporation at $122,651, and ALL Construction at $95,720. Payments also have gone to Hodges, Judy & Associates; Virginia Tech; the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection; National Quarry Service; Valley Rebuilders; RBS Inc.; Triple H Fencing; and
Post Net.

Rose estimated that the remaining construction budget for a revised version of the Sportsplex plan will be between $10 million and $14 million, more if the project has to be completed in phases, which he said the county may have to consider to make the project financially feasible. 

He said the Commission has accumulated about $1 million in Arts and Recreation Fund money from the county’s share of the hotel/motel tax that Commissioners have set aside for the project over the past few years. However, he said some of those funds still may be obligated to other projects.

Rose said he anticipates the county will take in between $800,000 and $1 million in hotel/motel tax revenue in 2026 for the Arts and Recreation Fund. Historically, the County Commission has used those funds to award grants to youth sports teams and leagues, local parks and recreational facilities, arts organizations, libraries, festivals, and the like. Rose expects to retain up to $500,000 of this year’s funds for the Sportsplex development expenses. The Commission hopes to raise much of the additional funding needed for the project through grants, although Rose said there are no grant applications currently pending for the project. 

County purchased land in 2017

The County Commission acquired two tracts of land for the project through a combination of purchase and donation from the Roger A. Boone Family LLC in 2017. The commission paid $300,000 initially for property totaling 140.15 acres. The commission later paid the Boone Family an additional $11,280 for another 3.76 acres of adjoining property.

Rose said Terradon Corporation developed the original plan for the site in 2019. The plan calls for baseball and soccer fields that are nearly identical to those in Kanawha County’s Shawnee Park sports complex. The plans need to be updated, he said, because one proposed baseball field at the front of the property near Harper Road must be eliminated since the space has already been used for a drainage ditch and pond. And additional changes need to be made.

The plans include a central area “quadraplex” with four baseball fields with their backstops encircling a core of buildings that will house concession facilities, restrooms, and an announcing booth, Rose said. Bleachers will be situated on two sides of each field. 

The plans show five soccer fields and parking on the two ends of the baseball field quad. The two soccer fields in the front of the property toward Harper Road are planned as regulation fields and the others are smaller fields, Rose said. He wants at least some of the fields to be astroturf. 

The Sportsplex property was divided into two tracts, according to the deed filed at the Greenbrier County Courthouse. Tract 1, which is a rectangle that runs roughly north to south, is 100 acres. The northern end reaches to the Greenbrier River Trail State Park. Tract 2, which is 40 acres, comes off the southern end of Tract 1, forming the bottom leg of an L, and runs east toward Hopper/Harper. 

Deed details terms of Boone family property agreement

Rose said that the Boone family donated the 40-acre tract while the Commission purchased the 100-acre tract. The deed to the property does not reference any donation of land. It does, however, document a $300,000 sales price for the two tracts and says that ownership of the 100-acre tract will revert back to the Roger A. Boone Family LLC should the Commission fail to make significant progress developing the sports complex within three years of the land transfer. It also gives the Boone Family the right to purchase the remaining 40 acres for $300,000. 

Since the project appeared to have stalled in recent years, The Real WV asked whether the reversion clause had been invoked by the Boone Family. Rose said that the Boone Family considered invoking the reversion clause, but the Commission had been working with the Boone Family’s attorneys to ensure that there was no possibility ownership of the land would revert to its previous owners. 

“The way it was originally written and everything, if we didn’t do anything within so long, they could take back what they gifted,” Rose said. “But we’ve already, our attorney has already worked with their attorney. And it belongs to the county. All belongs to the county.” 

The county had to make substantial progress on the project, he said. “We did what we were supposed to do.” Rose said he expects to start mowing and doing some clean up and maintenance on the property this spring.

The Real WV reached out to a representative of the Boone Family LLC in an effort to confirm that understanding but did not receive a response.

Leaders emphasize tourism potential

Since the beginning, project supporters have touted the facility as both an improvement to local sports facility offerings and a potential tourism draw that would bring in regional tournaments and visitors to the Lewisburg area. Rose is still convinced that will be the case. 

More than 2,000 young people in Greenbrier County play soccer, softball, and baseball, according to Rose. 

“The teams that are local travel teams go to Northern Virginia, all over Virginia, and North Carolina, and they travel quite a bit. They’ve all stated that they would come here,” Rose said.


“This (site) is only four miles off the interstate, and it’s a two-lane road all the way to it. A lot of sports parks you go to in different areas are set back, you know, on one lane roads or smaller roads because that’s where they could get the property. This one is going to be easy to access from the interstate, and I don’t think we have any problem at all getting people to come to it.”

Water and sewer still not in place

The site has access to three-phase power, but, right now, there is no public water or sewer to the Sportsplex site. Rose said the county could drill wells for water and has room for a “package plant” for sewage treatment if public utilities are not extended to the property. However, he said he anticipates it likely would be less expensive to extend the Lewisburg city water line to the property. 

The 143-acre proposed future site of the Greenbrier County Sportsplex is beside the landfill. Officials say $2,56 million has been spent preparing the site thus far, though it still lacks water and sewer.