Glover Park’s second phase underway; completion expected by fall 2025

Today, it’s a mixture of mangled tree stumps and branches, underbrush and assorted other plant life.

But by next fall, this undeveloped 73-acre site at Glover Park in Glen Allen will be home to two full-size turf baseball fields, a 1.75-acre turf dog park, a 5k trail, two playgrounds, two new turf multipurpose fields, a restroom complex, shade shelters and a lot more parking, among other amenities. Work on the long-awaited second phase of the park – involving acreage located behind the park’s four existing multipurpose fields and two sand volleyball courts – is now underway, following a series of delays that spanned nearly three years.

Ultimately the park (whose current portion totals about 33 acres) will expand to fill much of its 209-acre footprint between the Chickahominy River, Greenwood Road and Woodman Road in Glen Allen with a variety of recreational-use opportunities, connecting to the planned Fall Line Trail and helping solidify the Woodman Road corridor as a sports tourism hub.

In addition to the enhancement planned by the county, a 21-acre section of the park also will be home to an additional four-field, full-size turf baseball complex that will be constructed and operated by Prep Baseball Report, which intends to make the facility a signature location, attracting upwards of 30 tournaments annually, according to county officials. The timeframe for that project is not yet known, but construction work could begin relatively soon.

Getting to this point, however, hasn’t been easy.

Henrico voters approved in 2016 a $419.8-million bond referendum that included $20 million for the second phase of Glover Park, which opened in February 2018. Initial plans called for the phase to include a playground, dog park and additional sports fields and a stadium. But county officials spent time reimagining plans for the phase several years after passage of the referendum, which caused a slight delay, and then waited almost two years for permit approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to disturb 14 acres of wetlands on the site (acreage that county officials said wasn’t actually true “wetlands” but rather an old horse ring that had filled with standing water over the years).

Then, another unexpected delay: the site was found to be home to Northern Long-eared bats (a federally endangered species found in 37 states), meaning that county officials could not bring machinery onto the site to clear land between April 1 and Nov. 15. To keep things moving, they hired contractors who cleared about 70 acres of land by hand, using chainsaws, until Henrico received a permit in mid-June to bring equipment onto the property. In January, the county's board of supervisors officially awarded a $30.3-million contract to Southwood Building Systems of Ashland for the park's second phase of construction.

For Brookland District Supervisor Dan Schmitt, who took office following a special election on Nov. 7, 2018 (a Tuesday), arriving at the start of actual construction work has been a long time coming.

“My first-ever meeting at the county was that Friday, with this plan, 2018.” Schmitt said. “We've been dealing with wetlands, environmental issues, and Northern Long-eared bats. And here we are, finally, with the fuel of our [Henrico] Sports and Entertainment Authority combined with our [division of] Recreation and Parks, fulfilling a 2016 bond referendum project. A playground and dog park and the walking trail have been promised to these residents from day one, and quite frankly it hasn't been delivered. . . It is about time for the residents of Greenwood Road and the of the northwest corridor of the county to be able to come here and use the park that is rightfully theirs.”

Realizing former supervisor's 'vision'

With no more roadblocks, construction on the site quickly will ramp up, according to Henrico Recreation and Parks Director John Zannino.

Plans call for the park’s primary entrance (and its official address) to shift to a new one on the Woodman Road side. Once the new phase is complete next fall, visitors who arrive through the new entrance will pass on their right the county’s two new baseball fields and a meandering 3.1-mile trail – a significant portion of which will run adjacent to the Chickahominy River. (Trailheads and associated parking will be located near the Woodman Road entrance and at the far northwestern corner of the site, and exercise equipment will be located along and adjacent to the trail.) The PBR baseball complex eventually will be located to the left of the new entrance road and just east of the existing multipurpose fields.

As visitors continue in the park from Woodman Road, they’ll see the two new multipurpose fields to their left, the new playground and dog park to their right and hundreds of new parking spots surrounding the existing sand volleyball courts. (In total, the new phase will add nearly 1,500 more spots.) Officials also are planning a “misting pole plaza” to help visitors cool down on hot days, Zannino said, though there are no plans for a splash park.

The potential also exists near the Woodman Road entrance for a disc golf course along the trail and a skate park/pump track, Zannino said, but neither option is included in the second phase of construction.

“When you walk back here, you don’t feel like you’re going to be in an athletic complex, you’re going to be in nature,” Zannino said during a recent tour of the “community park” portion of the site, through which the trail will run. “It’s a separate area. This area in and of itself is a massive park. When you’re back here, I don’t think you’re going to even know what’s going on at the front [of the park].”

The expanded version of the park will help fulfill the dreams of the man for whom it was named just a few months after its opening – longtime Brookland District Supervisor Dick Glover, who died in early 2017 and whose efforts helped the county acquire the land on which it sits.

“Mr. Glover had this vision,” Schmitt said.

Glover was a vocal supporter of youth sports who envisioned Henrico as a national leader in sports tourism and youth and community facilities. County officials adopted that vision, opining that sports tourism was a nearly recession-proof industry, since families might cut other vacations during financial stress but most still would find a way to take their children to athletic competitions.

Henrico more than doubled the intended size of the park site in 2014 – first that August when a company tied to late developer Bob Atack gave the county 89 acres at the site, then later that November when it purchased another 18 adjacent acres for $760,000.

“I think it’s important because we’re able to do something that will enhance economic development in an area that has become a real factor, and that is sports tourism,” Glover was quoted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch as saying after the board voted unanimously to approve the purchase. “And it’s large enough to really put something together that will compete with some of the larger recreation areas in the country.”

That concept now is closer to becoming reality, and county officials expect to continue benefitting in several ways. Henrico, home to more than half the hotel rooms in the metro region, generated almost $60 million in combined hotel tax and meals tax revenue during the 2023-24 fiscal year (which ended June 30) – the majority of which came from non-county residents.

Overall, sports tourism created a $70-million impact in Henrico last year, according to the Henrico Sports and Entertainment Authority – a figure that will grow significantly thanks to the impact of the new Henrico Sports and Events Center at nearby Virginia Center, which opened in late 2023 and has been booked virtually every weekend for tournaments and other events ever since.

Schmitt considers the corridor that runs from Glover Park to the Sports and Events Center and across I-95 to the future GreenCity development (and planned 17,000-seat arena) at Parham Road and I-95 as Henrico’s burgeoning sports tourism corridor.

“The puzzle pieces start to fill in now of what the idea has been, of why the Woodman Road extension, why a cutoff to get cars off of Greenwood, let the tourists get off of 295, go around the circle, come up Woodman, [get to] hotels in the Virginia Center area,” Schmitt said. “To the constituent eye – they're starting to connect the dots.”

But in addition to adding to Henrico’s portfolio of sports facilities, Schmitt hopes that the expanded version of Glover Park also will serve a practical purpose.

“We have to continue to have options to get people off the road,” he said, referencing a number of fatal crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles. Creation of the trail will help do that, as will the park’s ultimate connection to the Fall Line Trail, which will run between Ashland and Petersburg upon its completion.

PBR baseball complex envisioned as organization's signature facility

The Prep Baseball Report complex, coupled with the two baseball fields the county is building at Glover Park, will create a unique complex nationally, according to county officials. Only a few similar complexes exist in the country’s eastern half, and most of those don’t have six full-size turf fields in one spot.

Henrico’s two fields at the site will include one designated as the “championship” field, featuring seating along a berm in the outfield. Though a timeline for the four additional fields at the county-owned but PBR-operated complex is not yet known, Henrico Sports and Entertainment Authority Director Dennis Bickmeier told the Citizen that the Henrico SEA was expecting to finalize its agreement with the company this month and construction may not be far behind. (Henrico SEA officials had posted a "request for interest" opportunity to solicit proposals for a complex at Glover Park in September 2022.)

PBR hosts tournaments designed to showcase high school players for college coaches and professional scouts, and it uses its own network of more than 150 scouts to ensure that each player in a tournament receives a player profile and scouting reports that it makes available to coaches and scouts.

Henrico partners with PBR on several tournaments in the county already, but PBR intends to make the new Glover Park site a signature complex in the nation, according to Bickmeier and Schmitt, with plans to host several dozen annual events for players 13 and older. PBR officials have indicated that some tournaments could attract upwards of 80 teams to the region, Bickmeier said. With 15 or so players per team, along with family members and others who would come, the tourism impact could quickly add up, officials believe.

“It’s both a tourism piece and a community amenity piece, with tourism almost paying the bills for our community being able to reap the benefit of it,” Schmitt said. “It’s just the same playbook [as other county-owned and privately-run sports facilities] but a different category.”

The ability to play on turf means that tournament organizers and attendees won't need to be as concerned about games being canceled by rain.

“It takes the rain out of the equation,” Zannino said. “As long as you don't have thunder and lightning, as soon as it stops raining you can go back to play.”

An added benefit of the partnership, Bickmeier, Schmitt and Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas said, is that the PBR fields will be available for use at certain times by youth sports associations and high schools in the county.

“There’s always a public-use component to everything that we do,” Vithoulkas said, citing examples of public-private partnerships that the county has enacted at Belmont Golf Course, the Frank J. Thornton YMCA Aquatic Center, the Henrico Sports and Events Center and the NOVA of Virginia Aquatics Regency facility that require the private operators to designate time at each for public use.

Schmitt is envisioning high school “games of the week” taking place at the complex, which Bickmeier said also could serve as a site for high school and youth associations to play makeup games when bad weather causes issues at other fields.

New softball fields are not planned at Glover Park, in part Schmitt said because county officials don't want to duplicate other local efforts. Chesterfield County recently made softball fields a priority by opening its new six-field Diamonds at Iron Bridge complex at Harry G. Daniel Park on Iron Bridge Road, three miles from another six-field complex at the Bird Athletic Complex.

Softball fields also typically include all-dirt infields, and Schmitt wanted Glover Park to be consistent in its all-turf approach.

During a visit to the site July 16 – hours after the county dedicated its new 99-acre Taylor Farm Park in Sandston – Schmitt reflected on the county’s commitment to recreational amenities.

“Taylor Farm Park and this park couldn’t really be more fundamentally different with their offerings, but how much does that speak to what Henrico’s doing?” he said. [Here], people want a walking trail, they want a bike trail, they want connectivity to the Fall Line, they want a playground, they want a dog park. In the East End, [Varina District Supervisor] Mr. [Tyrone] Nelson has just delivered exactly what his residents have asked for.

“So two major commitments – completely different from each other – balanced on each side of the county. I think today is pretty symbolic about the overall vision of five members of a board not fighting for a district thing but fighting to equitably balance a county. We’re fueling some sports tourism here, paying homage to a historic [site] at Taylor Farm Park. Different, yet the visions are exactly the same.”