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Sports complex debut delayed
The opening of the Northern Sports Complex, originally slated for this May, has been postponed until fall.While objections concerning the park design caused previous delays and setbacks, according to project manager Ronald L. Mabry, the site itself is responsible for the latest development.
Located at the corner of Route 55 and Whiting Road just outside Marshall, the site is particularly wet in certain areas, creating conditions that have made construction difficult.
“The challenge has been in amending these problems, so that we have usable sports fields and recreation areas,” said Mabry.
The county purchased the 88-acre property in 2000. Shortly after, county officials worked with a Richmond firm to develop a conceptional design based on the recreational needs of the county.
Patton Harris Rust & Associates, the project engineers, revised the design according to functional elements, and in 2002, the Paul Mellon estate donated $10 million toward building the park. Mellon family consultants and design representatives pushed for further amendments to the site plan, and construction of the complex did not begin until fall 2006.
Today, the sports complex includes two soccer fields, two football fields, two softball fields, two Babe Ruth baseball diamonds, as well as hiking trails, a playground, picnic shelters and an amphitheater for outdoor performances.
Parks and Recreation Department Director Larry Miller said landscaping issues are currently holding up the completion of the complex. “We're still finishing up the plan, getting pricing,” said Miller. “And weather will play a big factor.”
Thus far, the complex has cost $12.1 million, including site work and buildings. A million dollars of the Mellon grant, supplemented by an additional $300,000, went to landscaping.
That was partially in response to critics of the park who had complained that the sports fields would ruin the natural landscape, but officials have taken extra measures ? including buffering with plants, shrubs, and trees around all of the fields ? to ensure the complex blends in with the surrounding area. Once fully mature, the buffer will make the fields invisible from the road.
Other critics claimed the park was "too urban." Lighting on the baseball and football fields was a specific concern. Nearby neighbors worried it would flood their windows at night. Consequently, officials removed all nighttime lighting from the plan. A proposal to build a pool on the complex site also met resistance, in part because it would mean more cars driving through the park. That spurred officials to look for a different Marshall location on which to build the pool.
Finally, in addition to reducing the number of parking lot space, the original two parking lots were divided into pockets of parking located at the fields they serve.
“Any observations that it was a city park, were interpretations,” said Mabry. “It has been a rural community park since day one.” Nonetheless, officials have made enhancements to further the rural aesthetic of the park.
“It required a different design to achieve a consistency with the rural character of Fauquier County,” Miller said. “There's no magic formula. We had to keep working until we had a design that worked best for the site.”
The amphitheater was built near an existing silo, which was left intact to give testimony to the land’s farming heritage.The traditional stonework seen throughout the park, including a stone wall that begins on Route 55 and curves around to the park entrance, pavilions with stone detail, and stone bridges traversing streams also reflects the architecture of the Piedmont. “We've made it a truly beautiful park,” Mabry said.
As well as landscaping, there are road improvements still to be made on Route 55, including the addition of turn and acceleration lanes, which Mabry said will begin in April and hopeful be completed by June, depending on weather conditions. The parking lots also need to be finished.
The original plan for the fields included an irrigation system. However, because the cost outweighed convenience it was eliminated. How the fields will be watered has yet to be determined. This evening, officials will meet with the Fauquier Sports League Field Council to discuss the council's potential role in field maintenance in exchange for use of the fields.
At the beginning of summer, officials will do a walk through with the architecture, site contractor and engineer, documenting any corrections that need to be made before the fall opening.
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