South Park Youth Association completed construction of a 5,000 square foot multi-sport indoor training facility on the campus of Carmel Middle School. The project was completed by Roby Commercial in November 2023.  

The facility provides covered, climate-conditioned and lighted practice and training space to athletes in all South Park sports. In addition, the facility will be incorporated into the campus of Carmel Middle and will be available for use by all of the Cougar sports teams during regular school and practice hours.

The facility has turf surface and most of the available square footage will be devoted to practice space. The building is equipped with netting to form 3 batting cages/pitching tunnels for baseball and softball. But the netting can be completely reconfigured to allow open practice space for sports like football and lacrosse.

"We wanted to do something significant, something really big, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our organization.," said former SPYA President Larry Brown. "We felt the indoor training center would alleviate some of our space constraints and cement our partnership with Carmel Middle School and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. We felt it would be a huge benefit for our members and set South Park apart from other youth sports organizations in our area."

SPYA President John Jeffries added that there are countless people to thank for making this a reality, but there is one early supporter of the project that will be remembered when it is completed. "Todd Sherrill was someone who was really important to this project." Sherrill was South Park's liaison with CMS's facilities management and property division. "He was a South Park alum and actually played here as a kid. Todd really helped us get this off of the ground a few years ago and was a great supporter of our organization and our relationship with CMS. Sadly, we lost him during COVID, but he will be remembered around South Park as a big part of this."

The project is being handled by Roby Commercial Construction. "Andrew Roby is a huge supporter of South Park and youth sports in Charlotte," Jeffries said. "Our construction manager, Josh Freeman, and the rest of the leadership at Roby have been great. Dave McGuire is in leadership over there and all of his kids have played various sports at South Park. He's been a huge help to us and Roby has been a longtime league sponsor."

"It was so important to us to build something that served all of our sports and the families that support them," Brown said. "We are excited about this design and the flexibility and functionality it provides."

Jeffries agreed. "It is going to be great for everyone. Someone is going to have to tell me how to manage all of the requests to use it from our coaches and players. I may have to appoint a new commissioner just to be in charge of that!"