LakePoint Sporting Community to open 4 more ball fields

The Latest Local News from the Rome News

Baseball continues to rule the roost at the LakePoint Sporting Community in Bartow County , with four more fields expected to be ready for action by the middle of May.

When the new four-field pod is completed, it will give Perfect Game Baseball eight fields on the LakePoint south campus off U.S. 41 and Stars Way in Emerson.

Memorial Day marks the start of the summer travel team tournament schedule for the baseball venue.

Developers of the youth sports complex said that two hotels are under construction — a Sleep Inn on the adjacent Love’s Travel Center property and a Hampton Inn just north of the Ga. 293 entrance to LakePoint.

However, Taylor McCollough, vice president for tournaments with Perfect Game Baseball, said neither of the hotels is expected to be ready for occupancy until August at the earliest.

Another four hotels also are expected to break ground within the next 120 days, according to developer Earl Ehrhart. He declined to identify any of those hotels’ franchise affiliations.

Ehrhart said work on the north campus, between Ga. 293 and Old Alabama/Red Top Mountain Road, would begin later this year.

More than 40 college teams have visited the LakePoint baseball complex this spring, in part because of the snowstorms up north. Among those colleges traveling to the Bartow attraction were the University of Maryland, University of Tennessee, Ohio University, the University of Iowa, Western Michigan University and the College of William and Mary.

Since the baseball fields have artificial surfaces, the schedule has not been hit so hard by the bad weather in late February.

On one day last month, McCollough said, the fields were covered with snow at 10 a.m. but the sun popped out and they were able to play baseball by 1 p.m.

Construction of a large multi-use building that will be home to basketball, volleyball, wrestling and other indoor sports is slated to begin sometime during this summer.

Groundbreaking on the first batch of retail and auxiliary entertainment venues — a critical aspect of the self-contained campus concept — is scheduled for late this year.

And work on a track and field facility, which will be located on the north campus, is expected to begin in 2016.

Ehrhart said LakePoint is bidding for the Atlantic Sun Conference 2016 beach volleyball championships. LakePoint, Kennesaw State University and the Atlantic Sun Conference announced a partnership last year to bring additional sporting activity to the complex.

There is still no word from Ehrhart or Bass Pro officials on when construction will start on the Bass Pro Shop planned for the south campus.

Source: Rome News

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