"We’re very pleased that the Town has been able to honor our commitment to this project and are anxious to see it move forward,” said Cary Mayor Ernie McAlister. “The complex will bring tremendous recreational opportunities to our citizens as well as significant economic benefit to the region.” The $10.8 million project includes $1 million of its funding from Wake County’s Occupancy and Prepared Food/Beverage Tax fund.

“This project has always been at the center of the decision to move our headquarters to the Triangle,” said USA Baseball Executive Director/CEO Paul Seiler. “To see what the Town of Cary has committed to, and to have it all come together in such a wonderful manner, we couldn’t be happier. We are very much looking forward to sharing this facility with the residents of Cary and having our elite level athletes train here.”

The training center project team is being led by Heery International, a design, engineering and construction management firm with 30 offices worldwide. Heery has provided integrated services for such projects as the Georgia Dome, the 1996 Olympic Stadium (later converted to Turner Field) and several award winning minor league baseball parks and college stadiums. Beginning with the 1963 design of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Heery has completed more than 150 sports projects, providing enough seats to accommodate over a million fans. Other members of Heery’s team on the USA Baseball project are Raleigh-based landscape architect firm Mark Robinson & Associates and engineering firm Mulkey, Inc.

USA Baseball’s national training center will join a number of other offerings at Cary’s Thomas Brooks Park, which opened in 2002 and currently includes a four-field softball complex with tower, two soccer fields, a playground, picnic facility, shelter with restrooms, and outdoor lighted basketball courts. “We think this is going to be one of the finest baseball training facilities in the country,” said USA Baseball President Mike Gaski. “When it’s all said and done, it will be something for the Town of Cary and USA Baseball to be very proud of.”

The training center is also one in a series of high profile investments the Town of Cary has made in its parks, recreation, and cultural resources program. Other first class facilities include the state-of-the-art Koka Booth Amphitheatre at Regency Park, Sk8 Cary—the county’s first public skate park, and the 30-court Cary Tennis Center. These facilities, as well 21 parks and over 21 miles of trails and greenways, are overseen by the Town’s nationally accredited and award-winning Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources.

For more information on this or any other Town of Cary project, please visit us online at www.townofcary.org.

To view artist renderings of the future USA Baseball National Training Center, log on to http://www.usabaseball.com/facilities/usab-facilities-cary.html.

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PRIMARY CONTACTS:

Mary Henderson, PRCR Director, (919) 469-4051

Dave Fanucchi, USA Baseball, (919) 474-8721

Susan Moran, Cary Public Information Officer, (919) 460-4951