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If You Build It, Will They Come?
Fighting controversy and a recession, SportsQuest’s Steve Burton is turning his $100 million vision into reality
By Steve Clark
Photograph by Christopher Winton-Stahle
After 30 years, Dr. Stephen Burton has returned to his original career plan, though along the way it has become much bigger than likely even he could have dreamed, let alone everyone else.
“When I started college at William & Mary, I wanted to be an urban planner,” he said. “Didn’t happen right away, so with SportsQuest I have come full circle. I’m an urban planner.”
“Suburban planner” perhaps is a better phrase, for it is in the Chesterfield County suburbs that Steve Burton is the chief planner and moving force behind a $100 million project – with an invisioned investment totalling $250 million dollers – that has rallied both supporters and critics.
One quarter of a billion dollars is big money almost anywhere but especially in Central Virginia and even more especially in a recession, during which layoffs, lost funding and abandoned projects have defined the landscape.
Burton’s dreams were big.
But the obstacles, it has often seemed, were even bigger.
 MAN WITH A PLAN – AND IMPECCABLE TIMING
Burton is CEO and chairman of SportsQuest Inc., a company with an ambitious goal: to create a large sports and recreational complex where serious athletes can train to improve their skills, and where families and people who are shorter on athletic ability — but long on a passion for sports — can exercise, play games and stay physically fit.
The project came into the public eye in December 2008, when Chesterfield County announced a strategic initiative to have sports tourism as a vehicle for economic growth.
That news was music to his ears, Burton said recently in an interview in the Indoor Sports Center on SportsQuest’s East Campus in the Oak Lake Industrial Park off Genito Road.
“Soon after, I was in the [county’s] economic development office to say I had been working on a plan for years,” he said. “I told them I had a platform that could energize their strategic mission. That’s why we crafted a county partnership.”
After almost 18 months of study and negotiation, the county committed $4.7 million in the form of a repayment on a 20-year lease for the use of sports facilities that would be built. SportsQuest subsequently received federal stimulus money, as well, though later returning it — $30 million in Recovery Zone Facility Bonds through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that was designed to help private enterprise stimulate the economy.
The result: SportsQuest is developing a $100 million multi-use sports complex on 250 acres near the intersection of Powhite Parkway and Route 288. That’s only part of the hoped-for story. “Third-party developers,” Burton says, “will ultimately fund and develop hotel and retail businesses on the campus that will likely increase the overall project another $150 million.”
THE CRITICS LINE UP
Large-scale developments always stir up controversy, and SportsQuest has caught flak. Critics say Burton is trying to corner the market on youth sports in the Richmond area. Another concern: SportsQuest, a for-profit private enterprise, has received public funding from both Chesterfield County and the federal governments.
“Some special interest groups have … offered theory and conjecture of what we might do,” he said. “But we have not done any of those things. The idea that our interest is to take over not-for-profit youth sports is so far away from the reality of what we are. They just don’t understand what we are.
“For us, it is all about training athletes of various abilities. Some people train to make the NBA. Some people train to get a college scholarship. Some people train just to make their high school team. We don’t want to run youth leagues. We want to train athletes to perform better for whatever team they play for, in whatever league they play. We want to make their athletes better so their league is elevat ed.” SportsQuest may operate some leagues, Burton says, but “largely in sports that are less mature, in order to promote overall development of that sport, like lacrosse, field hockey, fencing, etc.”
One of SportsQuest’s prize pupils is Ka’lia Johnson. This past high school basketball season, the Thomas Dale senior was one of the nation’s top prep players. She has committed to attend Duke University on a basketball scholarship.
Burton defends receiving county money by saying SportsQuest will employ 500 people, expects to bring in tens of millions of dollars per year in economic development, and will continue to generate tourism dollars and therefore sales tax revenue for Chesterfield County.
“Our events bring people here,” he said. “They stay in our hotels and motels. They eat in our restaurants. They shop in our shops. If you look at a sports tournament, what we [SportsQuest] will see is the sports registration dollars. What the community will see is much better. We might get $50 a head in registration fees. The community is going to get about $200 a day from each visitor. The community is getting the big share and we’re getting the small share.”
What about the federal stimulus money?
If the main purpose of stimulus money is to create jobs, then SportsQuest’s $30 million allocation was a sound investment, Burton said. Still, last fall SportsQuest elected to return the federal money, he said. Too many “logistics hurdles” made it difficult for private enterprises to hit required deadlines for the funding, he said. Besides, other sources of non-government money have appeared, including Coca-Cola. “Private funding sources and corporate partners like Coke have provided millions,” he said.
But the criticism played no role, Burton said.
“The controversy was not a factor,” he said. “Every visionary effort will stir controversy. We are no exception.”
THE MAN WITH ASTROTURF IN HIS BLOOD
So who is this 54-year-old Chesterfield County resident who is the energetic whirlwind behind SportsQuest, which — when everything is done — could be one of the nation’s most impressive sports and recreational facilities?
Burton’s parents moved to Chesterfield County from Connecticut when he was in the sixth grade. His father, Chester resident Bill Burton, a textile engineer, took a job with Allied Chemical and played a key role in testing the original AstroTurf product.
After graduating from Thomas Dale High School, Steve Burton went to The College of William & Mary, where he played lacrosse and intramural sports. He earned a doctorate in psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi, then spent six years in Chicago working as a clinical psychologist in the health care industry. His specialty was sleep disorders, which inspired his passion for physical fitness.
“One of the challenges of sleep apnea is that it tends to be related to people who are overweight,” he said. “So part of my engagement with sleep apnea care was helping people to be more physically active in their life.”
Burton practices what he preaches. His main physical activities are speedskating and long-distance cycling with a cycling club called the Spin Mafia.
Twenty years ago, Burton returned to Chesterfield County with his family because he and his wife, Cindy, thought the county was a good place to raise their two young children.
 IT BEGAN WITH SPEEDSKATING
In 2002, while watching the Winter Olympics on television, Burton was fascinated by the speedskating events and especially skater Apolo Ohno. Working with his partner, Jim Mitchell, who works in the ice skating business, Burton soon started a speedskating training program at the Richmond Ice Zone rink off Midlothian Turnpike near Johnston-Willis Hospital. His goal was to attract young skaters whose dream was to compete in the Olympics. He succeeded. Three skaters who have trained with the SportsQuest speedskating team have made Olympic teams.
“We took a start-up program and in six years became the number one speedskating program in the country,” he said. The program’s skaters, he means, won more medals at the national championships than those from any other team for each of the past three years.
The success, he said, was based on “an innovative model of sport development that included vertical integration of training.” That means all levels of skaters received compatible training, from recreational beginners to Olympic hopefuls.
In February, two locally trained, 18-year-old skaters competed on the U.S. speedskating team in the Junior World Championships in Italy: Rachel Stewart, a Chesterfield County resident, and Jim Rodowsky, whose mother drove him to Richmond from their home in Annapolis, Md., to train four days a week until last year, when he moved into the Burtons’ Woodlake home along with several other young athletes.
“We call our house the dorm,” Burton said.
The success of the speedskating program gave Burton an idea: Why not build a sports complex where athletes could train for a variety of sports?
The idea for SportsQuest was born.
 BIG AND BECOMING EVEN BIGGER
The next major facility to be built will be a sports, aquatic and fitness center on the West Campus, so named because it is west of Route 288. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring, and the programming in some areas of the building is expected to be completed by Jan. 1.
Plans call for the center to house — among other things — an Olympic-size swimming pool; 15 NBA-size basketball courts that can be used for 14 sports, including volleyball, wrestling and fencing; an indoor competition track and field; a large fitness center; and a 4,500-seat, multiuse arena that could be used for a minor-league hockey team, indoor football, concerts and high school graduation ceremonies. Future plans for the west campus include an outdoor stadium for track and field events, cycling velodrome, as well as a multi-sport arena and ice sports-plex. Also, Burton says, third-party developers will purchase land parcels and build hotels, restaurants and retail shops.
Meanwhile, SportsQuest will be involved with a number of events this summer.
In late June, it will host a nine-day sports festival in conjunction with the Amateur Athletic Union. Athletes ages 6 through 18 will compete in 17 different AAU sports. The event will be too large for SportsQuest’s existing facilities, so numerous facilities throughout the Richmond area will be used — high school gyms, soccer fields and recreational playing fields.
Burton said he has an agreement with the AAU for SportsQuest to host a sports festival in the same time period in June for the next 20 years.
“Over tim e, we believe it will become one of the largest sports festivals in the country, if not the largest,” he said. “One day I believe we will have 100,000 people come to this event.” That would bring more than $30 million in economic development to greater Richmond over the nine days, he says.
Also this summer, several NBA players and college players training for the NBA draft will train with SportsQuest coaches and conduct clinics for young players. They include Omri Casspi, a 6-9 forward for the Sacramento Kings and the first native of Israel to play in the NBA, who will continue working at other training facilities as well.
“When we announced he was coming, our website got the most hits it has ever had,” Burton said. “He is like a rock star.”
SportsQuest also has just announced it has been awarded a franchise for a professional indoor team in the newly formed World Lacrosse League. “We’re excited to bring this exciting new professional indoor sport to Greater Richmond,” Burton said. SportsQuest is holding a “Name the Team” contest on its website.
Meanwhile, another season of action for the Richmond Revolution, the professional indoor football team owned by SportsQuest, is on schedule.
This season, however, Revolution home games will not be indoors at the Ashe Center in Richmond. They will be outdoors on SportsQuest’s east campus, complete with a digital video board for fans.
“Indoor football outdoors,” Burton said. “That should be fun to watch.”
Like everything else with Burton, you can count on people to be watching.
Steve Clark is a retired columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and, before that, The Richmond News Leader. Contact him at
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Getting a $100 million project underway successfully is never easy – and SportsQuest has its share of doubters. Here are a few of the criticisms and a few of the obstacles it must overcome:
- Funding Issues. Individual members and families have been signing up for training but not in numbers to ensure early liquidity. However, founder Steve Burton says corporate partners have come through with larger-than-expected contributions. It is taxpayer money, though, that has upset some. SportsQuest received $30 million in federal stimulus money but later returned it, Burton says. However, the private company did keep $4.7 million from Chesterfield County for leasing facilities; the payment came at a time when county schools, police, fire and emergency service were getting hit hard by the recession.
- Size. Critics argue Burton may be taking on too much too soon, resulting in the massive complex becoming too big to function well. If SportsQuest bites off more than it can chew, would the company turn to Chesterfield for a bailout?
- Delayed scheduling. Like many projects during the recession, SportsQuest has had trouble staying on calendar. The facility isn’t scheduled to be finished for another two years. Concerns about what’s happening behind the scenes escalated after the general manager, Phil Evans, suddenly resigned in February because the pro-sports element of the development had not progressed as quickly as Evans expected.
- Bullying the youth sports market. Critics accuse SportsQuest of trying to dominate youth sports at the expense of volunteer organizations and leagues. Burton pointedly denies any takeover attempt or interest in such an attempt. However, the company has acquired existing local sports associations and may drive other smaller youth leagues out of business or limit (or deny) access to playing fields formerly owned by the county.
- Credibility. Like many big projects, SportsQuest sometimes has seen reality outstripped by promises. Promotion began for the appearance of two professional basketball stars before details were confirmed. SportsQuest Academy has claimed to be accredited to issue high school diplomas, but it may not actually be eligible for accreditation until the school opens, Style Weekly reports. And the biggest questions, of course, are whether the $100-million development will even succeed itself, let alone bring in $150 million of other investments, plus tourism revenue and taxes.
– Erika Wells, Ray McAllister
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