Two Sports Projects Earn 2023 ACEC Virginia Engineering Excellence Awards

CHA has earned two Merit Awards in the ACEC Virginia 2023 Engineering Excellence Awards for the Dorey Park Baseball Stadium in Henrico and the Abingdon Sportsplex in Abingdon. Both of these new sports facilities provide their respective communities with state-of-the-art sports venues to serve local teams, community recreation needs, and bring in traveling teams supporting sports tourism, a significant economic driver.

Henrico County’s baseball stadium at Dorey Park gives people a stadium-style experience they don’t get anywhere else in the Greater Richmond Area.  The high-caliber irrigated baseball field includes amenities such as sunken dugouts, batting cages, pitching bullpens, a digital color scoreboard, a press box, LED sports lighting, and a Blue-tooth speaker system. Fans can watch games from covered stadium-style seating, grass berm seating along foul lines, or a high-top table dining area offering a relaxing vantage point with excellent field views. Renovated family-style restrooms, concessions, and various facility improvements enhance the game-day experience for athletes, families, and fans.

The 34-acre Meadows Sports Complex in Abingdon, Virginia, supports local soccer and baseball teams while providing traveling teams space to compete in baseball, softball, soccer, football, lacrosse, and more. The complex offers two 225-foot, one 300-foot, and one 350-foot skinned diamond fields with fencing, lighting, and scoreboards, as well as a press box and private meeting space. Movable fences can change the size of fields to accommodate younger age brackets, and movable mounds can shift the distance between bases for softball or baseball. Soccer, football, lacrosse, and many other sports can be played on two regulation-size soccer fields and one half-size multi-purpose field. Visitors can also enjoy the park’s ADA-accessible playground, perimeter walking path with access to the Virginia Creep Trail, picnic areas, lighted parking lots, and ornamental landscaping. Sustainable features like the splash pad with a recirculating water supply and efficient LED sports lighting add to the visitor experience while providing environmental and cost benefits.

The awards will be presented to CHA at the 2023 Engineering Excellence Awards celebration in Richmond, Virginia on February 2, 2023.