News

County embarks on $9½ million sports complex at Berkeley Park

Drawing shows three regulation-size and a youth field, a softball diamond and tennis courts at Berkeley Mills Park. [WGLA ENGINEERING]

By Bill Moss, Published: August 7, 2024

Taking a bold step toward what could eventually become a first-class sports complex, Henderson County commissioners voted 3-2 on Monday to make Berkeley Mills Park the home of regulation artificial turf soccer fields and, potentially, a softball diamond and tennis courts for prep athletics.

It was a close call between Jackson Park and Berkeley Park, which contains 39 acres that the School Board has agreed to give to the county for the sportsplex development.

Commissioners David Hill and Daniel Andreotta favored Jackson Park for the new soccer fields while chair Rebecca McCall, Michael Edney and Bill Lapsley voted for the Berkeley option.

Having settled on the location, commissioners directed county staff to begin discussions immediately with landscape architects WithersRavenal, the sole respondent to the county’s invitation to offer design-build services for the project.

"What I'm pleased to tell this board tonight is we do feel we have a firm that can do the project and recognizes the timeline,” Assistant County Manager Christopher Todd told commissioners. “They have brought forth a team that has experience directly in these types of facilities and they are a large enough company to have the horsepower to actually bring this to you all in the timeframe that is aggressive.” The project faces a tight deadline because a $9½ million federal American Rescue Plan grant that’s funding it must be obligated by Dec. 31.

At the start, the county plans three regulation-size soccer field and a smaller youth field plus rest rooms. As a condition for transferring the 39-acre site to the county, the School Board asked for the county commission’s commitment to add a softball field and tennis courts for Hendersonville High School when the money comes available. HHS has neither facility on its land-locked campus.

McCall said commissioners were not committing to the prep sports facilities “unless there's other funds that come in from donations or whatever, earmarked for those projects.”

HHS sports amenities may need donors

Both School Board members last month and commissioners on Monday night alluded to potential donors to support HHS athletics.

School Board member and former chair Blair Craven, who has been pushing the Berkeley sportsplex concept behind the scenes for years, said Tuesday he could not disclose any details on potential donors at this time.

“It’s just something that’ll come along later, hopefully,” he said. “This is the first step. … We think over time we’re gonna get the softball field and the tennis courts.”

Noting that he had played baseball as a youngster at the historic Berkeley stadium, Commissioner Hill said a soccer complex was too intense a development for the rolling, forested land.

“If you do what’s on that plan there, you forever change” the historic setting, he said.

“We're gonna change the character no matter what we do, wherever we do it,” McCall responded. She added: “My concern about Berkeley is if it stays with the school system, are they going to have the ability to maintain it at the level that it needs to be maintained? I just don’t know that they would have the ability to keep it up or improve it moving forward.”

“To me we get the most bang for our buck at Jackson,” Hill said. “We get a better facility, then we can work (later) on making Berkeley a smaller, less busy park.”

Rec board favors Berkeley option

Noting that he had been “pushing for soccer fields for 20 years,” Edney said both options had negative and positive factors.

“For internal roads, if we did something out there (at Jackson Park), I would think we'd spend a ton of money widening those roads and making them safer than they are,” he said. “But on Berkeley's positive side, we know that there are folks who are ready, willing and able to put up substantial sums of money to make it even better than what you're gonna do. We’re gonna have to move a lot of dirt and kill a lot of trees but it is easier to get into than Jackson. I’m willing to go with Berkeley because it'll get us where we need to go.”

Andreotta favored soccer fields at Jackson Park, suggesting the School Board could use its fund balance to build the HHS facilities.

“Down the road, the School Board could spend way less, disturbing way less of Berkeley Park, and put in tennis courts and softball,” he said.

Todd explained why the Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee recommended Berkeley Park after a discussion last week.

“I will summarize that they ultimately believed that Berkeley was the better of the two sites (for) two primary reasons. One was traffic,” he said. “They did feel that it was easier to get in and out of the Berkeley site. Ultimately, Jackson Park — they felt was a bottleneck on the sides,” served on either end by inadequate roads. And soccer fields at Jackson Park, the rec board said, would force the removal of a popular birding area and the relocation of “the beloved disc golf course.”

With the project on a fast-track, commissioners scheduled a special called meeting for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 20, to review and potentially authorize a contract with WithersRavenal for the work.