SoccerPlex Finds Itself in the Red
Year-Old Facility in Montgomery Scrambling to Make Up $500,000 Shortfall

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 19, 2002; Page B03

In October 2000, when the $14 million Maryland SoccerPlex opened near Germantown, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan heralded the project as an unusual public-private partnership that would benefit communities hungry for better facilities for the county's burgeoning youth sports leagues.

Just more than a year later, the tournament-quality complex is $500,000 in debt, its executive director said Thursday. The Maryland Soccer Foundation, the consortium of nine clubs that runs the Boyds facility, has had to increase player fees for the coming season while tripling tournament fees for outside clubs to help meet its $2.6 million budget.

Parents of some of the young players who will take to the SoccerPlex's 19 fields this spring are upset about the fee increases. Others said the SoccerPlex's original business plan overestimated revenue and donations, including the expectation of a corporate investor who would pay $3 million to $4 million for "naming rights" to the complex.

"I'm not surprised," County Council member Nancy Dacek (R-Upcounty) said of the budget woes. "I was concerned about their projections in the first place."

Duncan (D) met with SoccerPlex officials Thursday to discuss the shortfall.

"I think they're doing what they should be doing," Duncan said. "I'm very encouraged."

Trish Heffelfinger, executive director of the Maryland Soccer Foundation, blamed the sluggish economy and the failure of the complex's indoor Discovery Sports Center to bring in as much revenue as expected in its first basketball and volleyball seasons. Corporate donations were $400,000 below the $3 million target in 2001, she said.

"This is an organization that saw this early . . . that things were not going to come out as projected. The board did the prudent thing, which was to work to find a solution," Heffelfinger said.

That solution included changing the annual player fee from a flat rate of $20 to a fee that averages out to $8 to $48 a player annually. The tournament fees for outside teams have increased from $30 to $100 a game. The changes are expected to bring in an additional $319,110 in the coming year, Heffelfinger said. Increases in other charges and reductions in operating costs are expected to make up the rest of the shortfall, she said.

Leonard Raab, vice president of the Damascus Soccer Club, said the player fee increase could pose a hardship for some parents in his 1,500-member club.

"We don't think it's fair," Raab said. "We have a lot of middle-income people in our community, and if they have two or three kids in there, it's going to be a hardship on some of the families."

The Maryland Soccer Foundation was formed in 1997 by a group of soccer parents -- including Discovery Communications Inc. chairman and CEO John Hendricks and his wife, Maureen -- who dreamed of a building a world-class soccer facility for their children. Ultimately, nine clubs representing more than 22,000 players would band together in the effort.

To accomplish its goal, the foundation forged an unusual agreement with Montgomery County, officials said.

The SoccerPlex would occupy part of the county's 655-acre South Germantown Recreational Park, which had long been slated to become a major recreational facility for booming Germantown, with tennis courts, a golf driving range and an aquatic center.

The county and state spent $8 million improving roads and other infrastructure around the complex while the foundation raised and financed the $14 million to build and maintain the SoccerPlex. Currently, 19 of 24 outdoor soccer fields have been built, along with a 3,200-seat stadium for tournament games and the 64,000-square-foot Discovery Sports Center.

A similar effort is underway in Fairfax County. A soccer association near Centreville has purchased property where it plans to develop at least 14 lighted fields plus a recreation center, provided the county approves the necessary permits. Completion of the project is more than a decade off, however, and neighbors have registered concern about traffic and safety in the area.

Some in Montgomery voiced such concerns about the SoccerPlex, saying the project was overly ambitious and could create a traffic nightmare on already crowded roads.

"We looked at it as a ridiculous thing, based on revenue and membership projections that were not at all realistic," said Jorge Ribas, past president of the Montgomery County Civic Federation. "Of course they're going to blame it on the recession. They'll find an excuse, and in the end, they'll ask for a government bailout."

Heffelfinger denies that assertion but admits that last year the foundation did overestimate the amount the Discovery Sports Center would bring in during basketball season.

Basketball revenue was $8,967, far short of the $180,000 target, she said. More basketball teams have signed up to use the facility in the coming year, she said.

And many soccer parents said they are willing to pay a little extra to have access to SoccerPlex's well-kept fields, which are laser-graded for smoothness and self-irrigating.

"The SoccerPlex is a beautiful facility. It's a great place to play," said Rockville resident Steve Buckley, 42, a business manager who has a daughter in the Bethesda Soccer Club. "I hope it can sustain itself."