FOLLANSBEE - Two local businesses have contributed labor and equipment to help with efforts to establish an athletic complex on the city's north end.
Mayor Tony Paesano expressed appreciation to Ewusiak Development of Follansbee and Keith Yost Excavating of Wellsburg for creating a 4,000-foot long slag road leading to the proposed site of the complex, which is expected to serve as home to the city's youth baseball and football leagues and include facilities for other sports.
Paesano noted Scott Ewusiak, owner of Ewusiak Development and property adjacent to the site, also has donated a portion of land on which the road runs.
Located off Archer Hill Road and behind the former Koppers truck terminal, the road is part of about 30 acres donated to the city by Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.
The road's path was created by crews hauling tons of earth to the site from the hillside along Highland Hills Memorial Gardens to accommodate the expansion of state Route 2 north of the city in 2004.
Paesano said the access road is the first of a number of steps that must be taken to complete the complex.
Architects with Penoni and Associates of Pittsburgh have proposed two possible designs for the complex. Both include a 3,500 square foot recreation center that includes basketball, tennis and volleyball courts, rooms for weight lifting and aerobics, a concession stand and restrooms; and outside, fields for football, baseball and soccer and a 100-space parking lot.
The designs differed in the location of the facilities and shape of the recreation center, with a rectangular center in one and a more centrally located L-shaped center in the other.
Local representatives to the state legislature secured $50,000 for the complex's planning. The city has hired the Pittsburgh consulting firm of Cummings-Riter to assist in seeking funds for the project.
Paesano said the cost for the complex, as envisioned by architects with Penoni and Associates of Pittsburgh, could be millions of dollars, so the city's goal is to pursue the project in phases.
He said the first priority will be creating new fields for the youth baseball and football leagues.
The leagues have played for many years on property west and north of Brooke Plaza, the shopping plaza occupied by Tractor Supply and other businesses. The land was purchased by the city from Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. for $1.4 million, with the intention of marketing the land for economic development, in 2003.
Since then the Rite Aid drug store has opened on a portion of the land north of Brooke Plaza and Lee Paul Associates, a Wheeling real estate firm, in August purchased two acres west of the plaza and is expected later this month to announce a new business to open at the site.
Plans have been made to move the pony league field at the latter site to a wooded area behind Jo-Jon's. Ewusiak Development has agreed to clear the area for the field.
(Scott can be contacted at wscott@heraldstaronline.com.)
