LakePoint Groundbreaking Set for Thursday

A groundbreaking ceremony for "the biggest thing Bartow has ever seen" and one of Georgia's largest construction projects—LakePoint Sporting Community & Town Center—is set for Thursday at the construction site outside Cartersville in Emerson.

LakePoint Development partners—Atlanta Braves former manager Bobby Cox and current manager Fredi González and Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost—are set to join Gov. Nathan Deal to announce "one of the world’s largest and most unique amateur sports complexes," according to the press release.

The more than 1,200-acre development will feature state-of-the-art venues for more than 20 of America’s favorite sports, and 5 million square feet of mixed-use development consisting of commercial, retail and entertainment options.

Development partner Neal Freeman told the Rome Rotary Club committments and signed leases include those for a Rawlings sporting goods store and Hall of Fame restaurant, Mellow Mushroom, Moe’s Southwest Grill and Menchie’s Yogurt, Rome News-Tribune reports.

Last month, Wake Park Atlanta closed on 20 acres of land in LakePoint, set to be the future home of Terminus Wake Park, the largest and most unique cable wakeboard park in North America.

"This is the biggest construction project the state has seen in a long while," Judy Sparks, partner and LakePoint's chief marketing officer, said in the release. "We are going to move roughly 15 million cubic yards of dirt, a little more than what was moved for the Kia plant in West Point, Georgia.

"LakePoint is positioned to become one of the state’s key attractions when it opens in 2014."

The most important numbers may be used to quantify LakePoint's impact on Georgia's economy. Developers say the massive Bartow County complex will create about 2,400 jobs at first and up to 26,000 when the entire development is complete, which would make it one of the largest employers in northwest Georgia.

"Not only will LakePoint have a positive effect on the economy by creating approximately 26,000 jobs and bringing more than 4 million visitors to Georgia each year, it will also promote the physical and developmental well-being of youth," said Sparks.

LakePoint's Sports Village will feature 16 major league-sized baseball fields, 14 soccer/lacrosse fields, 16 fast-pitch softball and junior baseball fields, a 20-acre wake park, two Miracle League fields, and a 100,000-square-foot indoor facility for gymnastics, wrestling, volleyball, basketball, cheerleading and other sports, as well as 5 million square feet of retail, hotels, restaurants and other amenities. Designed for sustainability, durability and injury prevention, LakePoint will be the largest installation of synthetic sports surfacing in the world.

LakePoint also will be home to three major tenants—Perfect Game USA, the "gold-standard" resource for baseball recruiting for collegiate, minor and major league scouts; LB3 Lacrosse, one of the nation’s premier organizers of Lacrosse camps, clinics and tournament travel teams; and North Atlanta Soccer Association, the largest youth soccer organizations in the southeast.

The privately-funded LakePoint project will see its first pitch, kick and shot in 2014. Construction will begin mid-winter 2013.

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Related Content

• Wake Park Closes on Land at LakePoint
• LakePoint Pushes Opening to 2014
• LakePoint To Bring 20 Restaurants
• LakePoint: 'The Biggest Thing Bartow Has Ever Seen'

For more on LakePoint, see Cartersville Patch's special section dedicated to the development: LakePoint Sporting Community & Town Center.