Turfed tournament complex approved for western Fairfax County

November 11 - A dozen years of planning and a collective effort between the baseball community, local government and the Park Authority yielded a vote of approval this week for the development of a six-field turfed baseball facility in western Fairfax County.

The Fairfax County Park Authority Board on Tuesday approved a $100 million bond referendum that will upgrade parks and fields throughout the county over the next decade. As part of that bond, Patriot Park North, which the facility has been named, will be constructed on a 67-acre lot adjacent to Willow Springs Elementary School off of Braddock Road.

The new complex will cost in excess of $10 million and will feature four 90-foot diamonds and two 60-foot diamonds.

Rob Hahne, the chairman of the Fairfax County Baseball Council (FCBC), initiated the original efforts towards the development of such a complex in 2002. Other major players in the planning were Pat Herrity, the Springfield District representative on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, as well as from Dave Bowden, the Director of Planning and Development for the Park Authority, and Mike Thompson, Jr., the Springfield District representative on the Fairfax County Athletic Council who also sits on the Park Authority’s board.

Three existing grass fields - one 90-foot and two 60-foot diamonds - currently exist on the land and are used by Southwestern Youth Association (SYA) teams. The facility has been known as LLV Fields, named after the Lincoln-Lewis-Vannoy community that surrounds it.

“When we were able to acquire the [LLV] property, we went for it so we could get this thing going,” said Herrity, who has served on the Board of Supervisors since 2008. “And what we’ve ended up with is a facility that will be second to none.”

Bowden said a likely timeline would include two years for design and permitting, then anywhere from 18-24 months for construction. He estimated that would allow for an opening of the facility somewhere between the summer of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

“We’re going to our board in December to get the approval for the park master plan, which will allow us to go forward with the project,” Bowden said. “It’s a great opportunity. We don’t have a park with multiple fields like this, and it will provide the older youth another place to play."

Herrity, a former West Springfield Little Leaguer in his own right and the son of late longtime Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Herrity, was the first member of the Board of Supervisors to appoint someone from the athletic council to the Park Authority's Board when he tasked Thompson with the role. The move proved critical in the case of Patriot Park North.

“Mike Thompson, Jr., has really played a big role in this,” Herrity said. “He’s kind of been the one who’s had to go in and push to make this a priority. He’s bridged what was a gulf between the athletic council and the Park Authority, and spends a lot of time being involved with youth sports.”

The original targeted site, known as Patriot Park South at the corner of Fairfax County Parkway and Braddock Road, fell through in part due to Virginia Department of Transportation issues such as traffic flow, parking and exits. Another roadblock, Hahne said, came during the economic downturn in 2006-07, when parks and recreation funding became scarce.

That site is now part of a longer-term plan for the development of separate softball and rectangular field complexes that would also be equipped to host large tournaments and events.

“The Park Authority deserves a lot of credit for looking elsewhere,” Hahne said. “They presented [the new location] to us a couple years ago, and then it was a matter of FCBC staff and the baseball community lobbying the Park Authority Board and others to get it on the bond for 2016. And then ultimately to get the bond passed.”

Hahne, who also serves as the head coach at Westfield High School, the founder and chairman of Kyle’s Kamp, and the executive director of the Northern Virginia Travel Baseball League, added that SYA will be grandfathered into scheduling access to the new fields during the week and some weekends. The thought then is that scheduling on specific weekends would be geared towards hosting tournaments and events.

“I think the concept is, let’s say when kids are in school, is that select weekends are for tournaments, weekdays are for local use,” Hahne said. “Who knows how that will end up, but the idea is to try to bring as many events - Babe Ruth, Little League, Big League Little League, adult events, showcase events, camps, clinics, travel tournaments, you name it, but to make sure our entire baseball community is represented from a tournament aspect.

“We brought this here for our kids in our community, and we want to be sure that we service them.”

Herrity, a longtime advocate of youth athletics in Northern Virginia, feels the new venue will be key in the development of the county’s young athletes. And not just to their development on the playing field.

“Kids learn a lot through youth sports,” he said. “They learn life lessons through sports, and the more opportunities we give kids to play, to interact as a team, to learn how to win and and learn how to lose, the better Fairfax County is going to be.”

Plans call for the 90-foot diamonds to come equipped with high school dimensions for the outfield fences, with the four fields in a wheel-shaped cluster around a building that will house a concession stand and press box. It is unclear at this point if the larger diamonds will have dirt, turf or portable mounds. In the past year, the county has installed turf mounds at the refurbished Waters Field in Vienna and recently turfed diamonds at JEB Stuart High School in Falls Church and on the South County Secondary School campus in Lorton. Metal spikes are banned on those playing surfaces.

The 60-foot diamonds will have adjustable mounds and bases to accommodate the 50’/70’ dimensions used by Cal Ripken Baseball leagues and some transitional travel baseball leagues and tournaments. Plans also call for eight batting cages, a picnic shelter, restrooms, playground, outdoor fitness stations, trails, a food truck area and parking for 400 vehicles.

Hahne’s vision for the facility mirrors in several aspects the Virginia Sports Complex in Ruther Glen and the Sports at the Beach facility in Delaware, which have several grass fields and host numerous tournaments each year. In recent years, Georgia’s LakePoint venue best known for hosting several national Perfect Game tournaments and New Jersey’s Diamond Nation have opened all-turf facilities. All four venues have four 90-foot diamonds built around a main structure that allows for concessions, restrooms, a press box for operating sound systems and scoreboards, and a lookout tower for college coaches on site to scout players.

“The exciting part about this is to be able to host events, whether it be local, regional or national events to where our kids don’t have to go to Richmond or New Jersey or Florida or wherever to play in a highly-competitive tournament,” Hahne said. “It will save our families the hotel money, the gas money, the meal money and as importantly, from a county standpoint, there will be direct and indirect economic impacts hosting tournaments in Fairfax County.”

Specifically impacted could be local businesses and retailers, as tournaments bring the potential for dozens of teams from outside the area that will require lodging and restaurants. The Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. tourist industries could receive a boost as well, and Visit Fairfax’s Eric Kulczycky has already begun preliminary planning for ways to best host those out-of-town guests.

“We had a desperate need for diamonds, and especially 90-foot diamonds,” Herrity said. “[The facilities] fill two great needs. One, they fill the need for our local youth teams and leagues. And two, they create an opportunity to bring in tournament revenue for our county. It’s good for hotels, it’s good for restaurants, it’s good for shopping centers.”

Hahne cautioned that while initial approval was gained, several steps remain to make the project a reality.

“We’re very excited that they came to us with an alternate site, now it’s a matter of getting our baseball community engaged to lobby on behalf of this to keep it going," he said. "Even though the bond passed, there’s still a couple more steps and hurdles to get over to make this happen.

“Now it becomes a matter of trying to get the park fully-funded either through bond or other monies, and then to get it fast-tracked within the bond. It’s going to take awhile to get it built, so we want to get it on track to get built and get it in motion.”

Image courtesy of Fairfax County Park Authority

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