Plan advances for York-area sports facility

Manchester Township supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved zoning changes that could pave the way for a “community commercial sports facility” in one of the township’s five office and high-density residential zones.

While no specific location for the complex has been named by the developers, Rutter’s Properties LP of York, many township residents expect it to be built in a cornfield Rutter’s owns on the west side of Susquehanna Trail, just south of First Assembly of God Church.

The next step toward building the sports facility would be submitting plans for the complex in one of the zones where it is now permitted.

There’s no target date for submitting plans and announcing a specific location, one of the principals in Rutter’s Properties said after the supervisors’ vote on Tuesday.

“At this point, we’re still considering the options,” Chad Rutter said. “We’re happy that the township is allowing the concept to move forward, and we’ll continue to work with the township to evolve that concept.”

The Susquehanna Trail site had been given as a sample location, and residents who spoke during Tuesday’s supervisors’ meeting are both neighbors of the site and concerned about what they said would be the sports facility’s impact on traffic.

The example facility showed a building 90,000 square feet in size, with an air-supported dome structure 80 feet high.

Traffic is “already a disaster” at the Susquehanna Trail/Lightner Road intersection, resident Glenn Miley of Piedmont Drive told the supervisors.

“I think it’s a serious situation, and something needs to be done, because if you put a sports complex in there, there’s going to be a lot more traffic,” Miley said.

But something else that gets built at the discussed site, like townhouses, would have a huge traffic impact, the attorney for the developers said Tuesday.

“A community commercial sports complex, with open fields, when compared to duplexes and townhouses, would have less of an impact,” said the attorney, Gavin Markey of York.

A large crowd had attended a public meeting on the proposed facility back in July, but a subsequent meeting Oct. 19 drew a smaller turnout of some 25 people.

Tuesday’s supervisors’ meeting also drew some 25 people at the township building.

The supervisors’ vote Tuesday allows the sports complex as a special-exception use in both high-density residential and office zones.

Any approvals for the sports complex would have to first go to the township’s zoning board. Then, the actual land-development plans for something to be built would have to go to the township supervisors.

“This is step one of a multi-step process,” said one supervisor, Ken Wingert.

“Sports tourism” is a growing industry, experts have said, and the proposed York-area sports complex would join an increasing number of facilities in the youth-sports market.