After denying a 10-acre soccer facility in northern Albemarle County—and breaking the hearts of shin-guarded kids, who are legion—the county Board of Supervisors is backing a new facility for the Soccer Organization of Charlottesville Albemarle (SOCA). The facility, slated to cost roughly $5 million, will sit smack-dab in the middle of the Belvedere development off of Rio Road.
SOCA officials Bill Mueller and Rick Natale, along with Belvedere development director Chris Schooley, announced the partnership between the soccer organization and the development October 11. SOCA’s new home will include an indoor facility, a synthetic-turf field and four to five grass fields close to the Rivanna River.
Play ball: SOCA official Rick Natale and Robert Hauser of Stonehaus will work together to put an extensive soccer facility in the new Belvedere development.
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Albemarle Board of Supervisors Chair Ken Boyd was also at the press conference in the Stonehaus office. Stonehaus is developing the Belvedere project, which is marketed as both family- and eco-friendly. The project still needs the Board to approve two special-use permits for the outdoor fields.
"I’m extremely confident that the Board of Supervisors will get behind this project," Boyd said at the press conference. "This is a location that benefits everyone."
Location was at the heart of the issue when the Board denied the project last spring. Supes voted 5 to 1 against the proposal that included a 34,000-square-foot indoor facility. The site of the proposed project, however, was in a designated rural area, and supes shied away from setting a precedent of greenlighting rural development.
This time around, though, the Board is a lot sweeter on the project. Boyd and David Slutzky have expressed support. Both voted against the earlier project.
Schooley said at the press conference that the new SOCA facility fits in with the three goals of the Belvedere development: sustainability, family orientation and wellness. And it’s a close fit, too. The indoor facility, which will house playing surfaces and administrative offices, is tucked into a nest of lots that Stonehaus hopes soon will hold houses.
Natale, president of SOCA’s board of directors, says that funding for the project will come from a mix of public and private donors. The indoor facility (roughly 35,0000 square feet) will be built first, and construction of the project will be phased as SOCA’s fundraising efforts progress.
"We’re going to overlap [fundraising and construction] and try to get ahead," says Mueller. Construction on the indoor facility will start sometime in anywhere from 18 months to two years.
Soccer isn’t the only reason Belvedere has been in the news lately. As crews clear the area, residents have complained of smoke from fires that are being used to burn cleared wood. On October 12, several residents have prepared an injunction request for an Albemarle County judge to stop the burning. Court officials say that, as of October 12, no request for an injunction has been officially filed.
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