Mecklenburg County preparing to spend millions on new sports facilities

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After putting a list of projects on hold during the recession, the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department is preparing to spend millions of tax dollars on new sports facilities.

"We're very excited about it," Lee Jones, director of Capital Planning for Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation, said as he showed Eyewitness News the plans for new projects all over the Charlotte area.

In July, the county received access to $32 million for amateur sports facilities -- everything from new fields to concession stands.

Jones said when families come for tournaments, their visits have a big economic impact.

"People are going to come here, they're going to want to shop, eat in restaurants, stay in hotels, sightsee," Jones said.

Construction on all these projects is expected to start next year.

At the Matthews Sportsplex, seven multi-purpose fields are expected to be finished in mid-2015.

At the Southwest District Park, two baseball/softball fields are expected to be done by the end of 2014.

At Berewick District Park, three baseball/softball fields should be done around the same time.

And at the Friendship Park Sportsplex, two baseball/softball fields that can also be used for soccer are expected to be done in 2015.

However, not everyone agrees with the spending.

"There's other things, we probably have a lot of debt in our city, there's probably other things that need attention first," taxpayer Tanya Nedderman said.

But Bill McMillan with the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority says the Charlotte area "needs" to make the investment -- because other places are doing the same.

“I know Orlando is talking about doing right now a big infrastructure push, into even more amateur and youth sports than they're already doing at Disney and it's really a rising trend across the country.”

In February 2012, Channel 9 found out about a UNC-Charlotte study on amateur sports.

It estimated that they have an annual economic impact on the Charlotte area of $232 million.

WSOC