Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104190411
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W/1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
On a 23-acre tract of donated, flood-plain land, Salem is building the James I. Moyer Sports Complex. It will include four lighted softball/baseball/soccer fields and two football fields. The plans and amenities will make the facility special, however, much like Salem's football stadium.
"We wanted a multipurpose facility, but we wanted a first-class facility, too," said Charlie Hammersley, Salem's parks and recreation director. "Early on, the city administrators and city council said, `Let's don't just do this; let's do it right.' "
That's why the Moyer complex, named for the late Salem mayor and judge, has a three-story facilities building as its centerpiece. That's why there is concrete-bleacher seating for 600 at each of the four fields. That's why the fields have their own computerized, well-fed irrigation system, with sprinkler heads sprouting from infields and outfields at the push of a button.
The Moyer Sports Complex is scheduled to open this fall, with recreation football the first sport scheduled.
"We have good facilities for recreation sports in Salem," Hammersley said. "This complex gives us more fields, more flexibility. Our first priority is to serve our community. But we also are building with the idea that this facility can generate revenue for the city and for our recreation program."
The Moyer fields will be the site of the 1992 Amateur Softball Association National Fastpitch Championship tournament. The four-day event, scheduled over Labor Day weekend next year, will bring 52 teams to Salem.
"Using a conservative figure, that tournament will bring between $400,000 and $500,000 to the Roanoke Valley economy," Hammersley said.
Hammersley said a similar complex built in recent years in Rock Hill, S.C., brought in an estimated $1.7 million to the economy in one fiscal year.
Salem has been the site of numerous state and regional softball tournaments in the past at Oakey's Field. But the Main Street facility, already plagued with limited parking and outdated fence distances for the slow-pitch game, lost one of its two diamonds when the city turned land over to Home Shopping Network for a parking lot.
The Moyer complex was little more than a recreation department dream until 1987, when Graham-White Manufacturing Co. donated to the city 23 acres adjacent to the firm's Colorado Street plant.
"It was the type of land perfect for park use," Hammersley said. "You couldn't build a business on it because it's on the flood plain."
The $1.2 million facility has been partly funded by state money. Salem appealed to the state's division of parks and recreation services, and the city received a matching $300,000 grant from the state. Salem also got a $150,000 state loan at 4 percent below the prime rate, Hammersley said, through a plan that funnels payments back through the recreation departments.
Other funds for the project will come from Home Shopping Network's option to purchase the parking lot land on Main Street, Hammersley said. Much of the work on the Moyer complex is being performed by Salem electric, street and water crews. "We've gotten a lot in what you would call in-kind monies," he said.
The Moyer facility's entrance is off Union Street, and will be fronted by a 200-car parking lot and a ticket booth-souvenir stand. The four fields fan out from the brick, three-story tower, and the slow-pitch softball distance from home plates to the permanent chain-link fences will be 300 feet.
The complex will use 10-foot sections of lightweight, portable fencing to reduce fence distances for fast-pitch softball and Little League baseball and softball play. The bleacher seating is fronted by sunken team dugouts with toilet facilities and intercoms for team communication with scorekeepers and officials in the tower.
The bottom floor of the tower includes large restrooms and a concession area. The second floor houses youth and adult recreation sports offices and meetings rooms, the office for Moyer complex director Bob Ayersman and an umpires-officials dressing/shower room. The third floor will be occupied by public address announcers and scorekeepers.
The lighting system on each field will be comparable to the one at Municipal Field, home of the Carolina League's Salem Buccaneers.
Hammersley said the Moyer complex will satisfy Salem's need for soccer fields. Soccer will be played across the outfield grass of each softball/baseball diamond. The football fields will span two outfields, and portable bleacher seating will be brought in for football spectators.
Encircling the complex, on the outside of the border fence, will be an 18-station walk/run fitness trail, with workout stations at intervals on the course. The trail will run approximately a half-mile.
Perhaps the most unusual feature of the facility will be the watering system. Hammersley said a drilling company, interesting in experimenting with a new bit, inquired whether Salem would be willing to be the "guinea pig," with the resulting well as the payoff.
The company struck water on the Moyer complex land. So, the facility will have its own water, exclusive of the city water system. If a summer drought should dry up fields elsewhere, the Moyer fields will remain green thanks to the underground system that can dampen an unused field at the push of a computer key.
"We don't want to use the facility every weekend," Hammersley said. "It will get plenty of use from April on through football season, but if we're going to have a nice facility, we have to have time to keep it that way, too."
The Salem recreation director said his only concern about the complex is a need for more parking to handle potential crowds on tournament weekends. He said future construction would likely include a playground complex "so parents will have somewhere for their little ones to play while they watch their older ones play ball."
Hammersley said the Moyer complex will be open for public use when it's not scheduled for team, league or tournament play.
"If a father wants to come out here and hit ground balls to his kids, it will be open for that, as long as we haven't issued a permit for that time," he said. "Our first priority is for this complex to be used by the citizens of Salem.
"It can do a lot more for us, too."
by CNB