This Rock Hill high school announces plan for 33-acre athletic complex. What to know.
Legion Collegiate Academy announced its plan Thursday to build a 33-acre, multi-sport athletic facility, which will join the long list of state-of-the-art sport complexes in the Rock Hill area.
Legion Collegiate, a dual enrollment charter school in Rock Hill, focuses on athletics and academics. Student-athletes, in grades 9-12, split their time between high school and college-level classes, and the athletic field.
About a year after the school opened, Legion has plans to build the athletic complex, which will serve as the student-athletes’ “home turf,” board member David Stringer told The Herald. The facilities will include five practice fields and four lighted game fields for five different sports — football, baseball, softball, soccer and lacrosse, according to information provided to The Herald.
Legion, currently operating out of a temporary location at Trinity Bible Church, closed on a $13.9 million construction bond last year. The school’s permanent site — an 83-acre property near the corner of Mount Holly Road and Long Meadow Road — should be finished before the end of December, Stringer said.
Students and staff should be able to move to the permanent location, off exit 73 on I-77, in January 2021, Stringer said.
Legion officials hope to have the softball and baseball complex completed by spring and have all complexes completed by 2022, Stringer said.
“This is a first step in a very ambitious and worthwhile endeavor to create yet another — we keep calling it another jewel in the crown of the sports tourism here in Rock Hill,” Stringer said. “
Based on the school’s plan, all playing surfaces will be grass. The softball and baseball complex will have a 900-square-foot concession area. The football complex will have an elevated seating for a projected 2,500 fans to sit. And there will be a sound system for the soccer and lacrosse facilities.
“We’re living up to the charter of LCA, which is to create an environment for elite students and elite athletes,” Stringer told The Herald.
The school is working to accrue funds for the facility. Through a sponsorship with Founder Credit Union and Pinnacle Management, Legion had raised about $16,000 as of Thursday night, Stringer told The Herald.
And now, Legion Collegiate is working to form a capital campaign committee, headed by Stringer, that will work to determine next steps of the plan. Parents and community members interested in joining the committee can sign up on the school’s site.
“So, this was a public call for, ‘Hey, if you’re interested in helping us and being a part of this process, we want you to join our committee,’” Stringer told The Herald.
Stringer said the fundraising goal has not been determined just yet, and that will be one of the committee’s responsibilities.
“We’ve got a rough idea of what that master plan is going to be and we need to justify that master plan versus budget versus what’s realistic,” Stringer said. “Once this committee has been formed, and we can really, as a group of people sit down and really work through the master plan, then we will announce specific goals.”
People can donate online on the school’s website.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 7:59 AM.
