Sports & Events Center tours local media
It's June 5. Local leaders say Greater Williamsburg Sports & Events Center will turbocharge tourism revenue. CW's July 4th celebration stars on PBS special. JCC commissioners spar over vape shops
Key Takeaways
Greater Williamsburg Sports & Events Center grand opening June 24
More than 100 events booked, generating 29,000 hotel nights
$80 million, 200,000 square foot facility
$10 million pull-out turf system largest in US
Can handle up to 12 basketball, 24 volleyball, or 36 pickleball courts
Can take up to 5,000 people for trade shows
Local leaders turned out Thursday to show off the new Greater Williamsburg Sports & Events Center to the media, hailing it as “the right opportunity to take this destination to the next level.”
The event center has already booked all but seven weekends for the next fiscal year, Sales and Marketing Manager Heidi Hume told us. Dana Youst, the executive director of the Historic Triangle Recreational Facilities Authority, said it has already generated 29,000 room might reservations from events.
The $80 million, 200,000 square foot facility was built by the Historic Triangle Recreational Facilities Authority on land leased from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for 30 years.
Williamsburg, James City County and York County use money generated by the room and occupancy taxes charged to hotel visitors to finance the facility.
Under the arrangement established by the three local governments, Williamsburg committed to spending $2.5 million a year to help repay the construction costs and another $1.5 million toward operating losses. James City and York counties each committed to spending up to $800,000 a year to subsidize operating losses in the first three years of the center’s operations, and $300,000 to $800,000 a year for the following 25 years.
HTRFA Chair Scott Stevens, who is also the James City County administrator, told the York County board of supervisors Tuesday that current results made him optimistic that the facility could eventually operate at break even. The Center was promoted as a way to generate tourism dollars for local governments and businesses and was not intended to be a profitable operation in itself.
“Williamsburg has long thrived on the tourism industry. And we feel that sports is the right opportunity to take this destination to the next level,” Williamsburg Mayor Douglas G. Pons said at the media day tour.
Pons noted that Colonial Williamsburg, the main generator of tourism to the area, was made possible by money from oil billionaire John D. Rockefeller Jr. 100 years ago. But the next wave of tourism development was going to have to come from community investment, he said.
The Center can handle a variety of events, from basketball tournaments to trade shows and weddings. But it will also be an entertainment venue for the Historic Triangle, James City Chair John McGlennon told the media.
“The general idea is that Monday through Thursday will be devoted to community use...and to relieve the pressure that we’ve had, trying to find space,” McGlennon said “Anybody who’s coached a youth basketball team knows that struggle to find the right gym available at the right time, that doesn’t conflict with school activities.”
The Center features a $10 million retractable turf floor for indoor soccer that is the largest in the U.S., said General Manager Ben Hardouin. It also has a variety of meeting rooms that can be used for smaller activities, and catering facilities for events.
It also features an expansive adventure gym with activities for children from three years and up.
“You come here, your 15 year old daughter’s playing volleyball, and your 6 year old son is driving you crazy?” Hardouin said. Parents can tell the younger sibling “Go in there. Go play.” There are a variety of seating areas on both levels, as well as balcony spaces that can serve as reception venues.
“We wanted the experience here to be inviting and welcoming,” Hardouin added. “One of the unique things about this facility is, you literally can walk in, grab a cup of coffee...pop open your laptop, and work. You don’t have to be a member, you don’t have to be (an event) participant. It is a community center.”
The center has already booked a wedding, a car show, and several sports events, as well as the Williamsburg Cat show, Hardouin said.
The Grand Opening will be open to the public June 24 from 4 – 8 p.m. Retired American soccer star and commentator Ali Krieger will speak at the ceremony.
In the video below, Williamsburg Mayor Doug Pons tries out the trampoline jump:
Vape shops heat up James City planning commission meeting
James City County planning commissioners shared some heated words Tuesday night about a proposed ordinance that would ban vape shops closer than 1,000 feet from schools, and a special use permit to allow just such a store near Greenwood Christian Academy.
In the end, they voted 3-2 to recommend the county not pass the ordinance, and later voted 3-2 to approve a new vape shop at the Williamsburg Crossing Shopping Center.
The commissioners generally agreed that a store selling legal products should not be prohibited, and that the distance to a school would not necessarily lead students to want to vape.
But Powhatan District Commissioner Vincent Passero said his issue was with the customers who go to vape shops for products like Kratom and THC who might be drug addicts, adding “ Now we’ve just put in a place where they’re going to go and be not in their right state of mind within 1,000 feet of the school.”
Passero said more than a dozen vape shops in Hampton Roads have been raided for illegal activities.
He said there was already another vape shop in the same shopping center, whose representatives promised him during its special permit hearing in April they would not sell THC and Kratom, but who are now stocking them.
“They stood there at that podium and they lied to me,” Passero said angrily.
“We’re not the police,” responded Vice Chair Stephen Rodgers, saying he would not measure the current applicant by the actions of another.
In the end, the commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the vape shop, with Passero and Jamestown Commissioner Frank Polster voting against. They also voted 3-2 to recommend the supervisors not change the zoning ordinance to add the 1,000-foot limit, with Passero and at large-Commissioner Jack Haldeman voting against that recommendation.
PBS to broadcast CW July 4 extravaganza
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