By Chris Wilson

The city of Newberry will begin step one of its plan toward becoming a recreation destination with the now-approved construction of its archery/recreation center at the Newberry Sports Complex, located off S.R. 45. Newberry city manager Keith Ashby says dirt will likely begin to fly for the project by September 2008.

This is just the first part of Newberry’s plan to become a sports hub. On May 6, Lou Presutti of Cooperstown Dream Park was slated to appear before the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners to ask for land, infrastructure and site prep for a 16-field state-of-the-art baseball and softball complex. The additional development of the site would be paid for by Presutti’s company. His vision is to make it a destination for southeastern regional tournaments, Thanksgiving and winter baseball tournaments and as an overflow for teams turned away from the popular summer tournaments held at his Cooperstown, NY, facility.

The archery and recreation center is becoming a reality thanks to a public-private partnership between the city of Newberry and the Easton Sports Development Foundation (ESDF). The city is providing the land and site preparation, while the ESDF will fund the first $1.5-million of the construction. The project is expected to cost about $2.4-million and it currently is out to bid for construction firms. The city of Newberry has taken out a $900,000 line of credit to make up the portion of the construction that is not covered by the ESDF. In addition, Ashby says the city already has received some private donations of concrete and other materials that should help keep costs below the $2.4-million estimate. Bids are expected to be received by June 2.

“We’d like to be able to start construction by September,” says Ashby. “We are doing a site plan already. The topographical has been drawn up and we expect to be doing a geo-technical drilling.”

Ashby says once the construction company is selected, he will sit down with ESDF director Erik Watts to sign a contract. The building will be entirely owned by the city of Newberry after 20 years.

The plan is for an indoor archery range, offices and classrooms that will be used by the National Alliance for the Development of Archery (NADA), a range shop, locker rooms and a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court. In addition, the land will be developed so that there is are outdoor archery ranges, including a 3-D archery trail in the 60 acres of woodlands on the property. There also will be a 5K cross country running course that will be cut through the property. “The state has said that if we can build a 5K trail that gets certified by a running association, we can probably get some of it funded by the state,” says Ashby. “They want trails that are green with minimal concrete.”

Ashby says the gymnasium will be used for basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and other programs that will be run by the city.

“The goal is to have regional (archery) centers all over the country to help us improve the Olympic archery program,” says ESDF director Erik Watts. “The offshoot of that is that the facility will be used 80 to 90 percent of the time not for Olympic programs, but for local archery programs. Whether it’s a senior program, a youth program, bow-hunting training and programs, we’ll have world class coaching and they will train local programs.”

The coaching and training, for the most part, will be done by the network of coaches associated with the NADA, which will be a tenant. The NADA also will be assisting the city of Newberry’s recreation department with programs and shared staff with a payroll value of nearly $50,000 per year. NADA currently has an office in the Newberry Commercial Park and the five employees the alliance has in Newberry will be based at the new facility.

“There also is a host of regional, state and national tournaments within the archery industry that we expect to be recruiting to come here,” says NADA director Doug Engh. “The big plum, if you will, is that the next Olympic trials for archery will be in 2012 and we will be soliciting to host some Olympic trials here.”