farragutpress.com-Farragut West Knox Chamber members and guests got an inside look at the economic impact of three area sports complexes under development at FWKCC Breakfast Speaker Series, “Game Changers — The Economic Impact of Sports Complexes,” in Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in downtown Knoxville Wednesday morning, Aug. 28.

Presented by i4C Technology Group, Julie Blaylock, FWKCC president/CEO, said money from the speaker series raised $1,550 for Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame H.E.R.O. education program for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

 

Steve Maddox, president/founder of Maddox Companies, is the father of Dalton Maddox, vice president; Doug Kirchofer, CEO of Boyd Sports; and Tim Chandler, vice president of marketing for Flatrock Motorsports Park shared updates on their projects and the impact they will have on their respective communities during a panel discussion at the breakfast, catered by The Classy Caterer and moderated by Brittany Tarwater of WVLT-TV.

According to the Maddoxes, their Prosperity Crossing, being located at the crossroads of the North/South Interstate I-75 and East/West Interstate I-40 near Watt Road, is a 260-acre mixed use, sports-themed development featuring retail, a business park, hotel complex, entertainment venues, restaurants and residential living.

“We’re putting in a mixed-use sports element (with) seven fully turfed fields, open to tournament play on regional and national levels on weekends, along with local play during the week,” Dalton Maddox said. “We’re also putting in indoor sports and sports entertainment aspect to this.”

He expects tourism and entertainment opportunities to arise from the development.

“This is a project I’ve been working on for 14, 15 years,” Steve Maddox said. “I started off with 100 acres. Now it’s up to 230 acres.”

Struggling to come up with the right theme for the project, Steve said, “Sports came to us as an idea … we’re in the earth-moving process at this time, and we’ll be moving earth for about another five or six months, (then) it will start becoming vertical at that point in time.”

He said citizens could expect hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and other different types of mixed uses.

“It’s going to be a huge boost to Knox County,” Steve added, pointing out there will be improvements to the Interstate interchanges to go along with the project.

Kirchofer also expects a boost coming from his company’s project.

“We’re working with the City of Knoxville and Knox County,” he said. “We are already employing groups.”

Covenant Health Park will be providing a baseball stadium for The Smokies baseball games and other events in the downtown area. As part of the redevelopment, GEM Community Development Group partnered with Boyd Sports to undertake the multi-million dollar project, also offering restaurant, retail and residential, as well as public plazas.

“We have a small construction project going on that is down the street here that is highly visible, and we’re extremely excited about the progress that is being made,” Kirchofer said. “I’m looking forward to talking to you more about what the timeline looks like, what we hope that it means for downtown Knoxville and for our region.”

Traveling to Cumberland County, Flatrock Motor Sports Park, located off Exit 338 from I-40, at the Westel Road exit, Chandler described the 800-acre, multi-phase park development as a “motorsports resort,” expected to be completed in a little more than three years. Phase 1 is 500 club and country club, which currently under construction.

“The tracks are paved and finished,” he said. “We’re putting in the final elements for electronics lll.”

According to its website, there are three tracks: a 3.5-mile, a 2.48-mile and 1.05-mile.