Bluefield’s historic Mitchell Stadium would serve as a centralized championship venue for area high schools and colleges under a new recreation and athletic plan being drafted by city officials.

That ongoing recreation and athletic study calls for a number of new additions to Mitchell Stadium and its surrounding area, including a new soccer/multi-purpose field and a new track and field facility, among various other improvements. The recommendations from the ongoing athletic study were made public by city officials during a recent meeting with U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

The recreation and athletic study is a joint effort between the city of Bluefield and the town of Bluefield, Va. The goal is to modernize Mitchell Stadium, which the study describes as “one of the region’s most important athletic venues and community gathering spaces.”

“So the idea there is one we’ve got two universities, we’ve got two high schools,” City Engineer Curtis French said. “If you can get to one place where you can have track events, you can have football events, you can have soccer events, you can have baseball events — you know you can do all these multi-use events. This brings them to this one spot within Bluefield, and then we’re attracting not just the high schools and collegiate leagues but we are also attracting the recreational leagues, the Triple A baseball, the travel ball type scenario.”

French said the push for sports tourism growth at Mitchell Stadium would also benefit area hotels, motels and restaurants with visitors to the region both eating out and spending the night in the area.

The goal, according to the recreation study, is to strengthen Mitchell Stadium as a year-round asset for recreation, wellness and regional competition and to specifically position the two Bluefields as a destination for regional tournaments.

“So long story short we took a stab two years in a row at the state (football) championship,” French said of the region’s efforts to bring the Class AA state high school football championship contest to Mitchell Stadium. “The bang on us was that we did not have locker rooms. Well this would give us new lockers for state championship (games). With this we could then host the regional track event down here, instead of up in Charleston. I know volleyball is a big thing, and we don’t have volleyball here. It’s just those kind of things we want to be able to bring to Bluefield. Now again, I’m not just talking about collegiate or high school sports. These are also travel sports. These are intramural leagues and different things.”

According to the new sports and tourism vision, the existing athletic facilities at city park would serve as a centralized championship venue. While existing high school and collegiate games would still occur at facilities across the region, the final championship games would be held at Mitchell Stadium, which can seat up to 10,000 people for football, and Bowen Field for baseball championships, according to the athletic study.

The expansion plan supports large-scale tournaments and diverse sporting events while balancing tournament growth with ongoing community recreation use, according to the study.

It also envisions a health and wellness center that would support sports medicine programs at nearby universities and connects the lower parking lot area at city park to the elevated stadium site.

The recreation and athletic study also proposes a track and field facility that would feature an eight-lane track with full-size turf soccer field that would be designed for high school and collegiate events.

The athletic study also seeks to convert an underutilized baseball field north of Bowen Field into a soccer/multipurpose field with an enhanced pedestrian circulation area.

In order to make the planned improvements a reality, the city, which owns Mitchell Stadium, will be seeking grant funding, as well as help from area entities and foundations. The city also will seek a federal Congressionally Directed Spending request for the planned upgrades from Capito and U.S. Senator Jim Justice, R-W.Va.

Congressionally Directed Spending requests were formally known as federal earmarks. Lawmakers such as Capito and Justice can direct those funds to specific projects within their congressional districts.

“There will be requests for CDS (Congressional Directed Spending), there will be grants, and we’ll look for land water conservation funds,” French said. “You know we’ve done a good job, and not to toot our own horn, but we’ve been blessed to afford a lot of these projects through grants, and through very little funding from the local taxpayer, utilizing a federal source to outmatch what we can put in locally to do what we’ve done, and then private foundations are involved.”

There is not a current timeframe for the completion of the proposed upgrades, and the recreation and athletic study between the city of Bluefield and the town of Bluefield, Va. is ongoing, according to French.

“So the athletic study has not completed yet,” French said. “I think they have one more steering committee meeting or two more steering committee meetings. So once that is done we’ll have a better timeline of when we’re going to do it and what’s going to be phase one, phase two and phase three.”

On the Virginia side of the border, the ongoing recreation and athletic study includes recommendations for new housing for ATV tourists, including above Fincastle and near Harmony Acres pool, Bluefield, Va. Town Manager Andrew Hanson said last week.