Ground to be broken for sports complex

Grand opening is planned for mid-April.
& lt;a href=mailto:gwin@vindy.com & gt;By HAROLD GWIN & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GROVE CITY, Pa. -- A $7.5 million sports complex that will bring a lot of outdoor sports indoors is going up near the Grove City Outlet Mall on Pa. Route 208 in Springfield Township.
Ground will be broken at 2 p.m. Friday for Born2Run, the brainchild of James Hoy of Barkeyville, who has formed a partnership with Thomas Linton of Hermitage on the project.
The first phase is being built on 32 acres, about a half-mile west of Interstate 79 and will consist of three buildings.
The first will be a 60,000-square-foot gym that will house four basketball courts, eight volleyball courts, an indoor soccer field, a strength and fitness center, a health club and a day-care center, he said.
The second will be an athletic dormitory that can sleep 360 student-athletes. The third will be a roller hockey rink. There will also be outdoor grass and synthetic turf soccer fields, Hoy said.
Linton said he has an option on an additional 82 acres of adjacent land, and Hoy said the long-term plan is to add ice hockey and swimming pool facilities.
A dream
"This is my dream to build this place," said Hoy, a former Sharon varsity basketball coach who has been running his own Born2Run basketball camps in the Pittsburgh area for the past decade.
Hoy said he's been working on this project "in my head" for the past 10 years and is working on the development full time.
Grand opening has been set for April 16, he said, noting one of five 2004 basketball clinics will be held April 16, 17 and 18.
Other clinics sponsored by Nike are in Wisconsin, Connecticut, Nevada and Mississippi.
The task now is to get other events scheduled so the facility will have a full slate of activities ready to go by the time it opens, Hoy said.
Spending funds
Springfield Township supervisors gave the project final approval in late September and Linton said the developers will spend about $250,000 to upgrade the township's sanitary sewer pumping stations to handle the complex, put in a $200,000 turning lane off Route 208 and spend about $100,000 to put up a fence and three rows of pines as screening on the south and west sides to shield it from neighbors.
Linton, chief executive officer of Linton Industries, a commercial/industrial general contractor in New Castle, also owns a commercial real estate holding company and a commercial real estate development company and is a partner in a residential development company and an equipment rental firm, said he is putting up nearly half the financing.
The rest will be borrowed.
The two men have also formed a charitable organization, One Shining Moment Charities, that will provide a method for corporate and individual donors to sponsor low-income children to use the facilities, Hoy said.
That could also be a source of construction funds, he said.
& lt;a href=mailto:gwin@vindy.com & gt;gwin@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;