CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County Commission President Ben Salango says the future construction of the Capital Sports Center in downtown Charleston is being put on pause for now as they look into how to maneuver around a $7 million dollar budget gap.

Salango said on 580 Live with Dave Allen Wednesday that the City of Charleston had already been in the process of receiving the $7 million in congressionally-directed spending for the project at the former Macy’s department store building at the Town Center Mall, but when the congressional budget ended up not passing, this led to the federal earmark not going through either.

Ben Salango

“After the November election, and we were watching it very carefully because we knew that it was going to come in tight, we still thought the budget would pass and that earmark would be in the budget, but it didn’t pass, so now we’re back to looking into figuring how we’re going to get that other $7 million dollars,” Salango said.

Salango said everything else with the budget plan for the future state-of-the-art Capital Sports Center is in place, from the $50 million they would receive in bonds to the $5 million each the city and the county were contributing for the project.

Currently, the city and the county commission are in the process of submitting another request for the congressionally-directed spending, which they are hoping will come through, but Salango said it was definitely a major set back.

“You don’t want to start a project with a $7 million dollar gap,” he said. “I mean that’s just not smart business, I wouldn’t do that with my business and I won’t do that for the county, so we have to wait and make sure that funding is in place.”

However, Salango said while the project is on pause for now, they are remaining cautiously optimistic.

He said if they don’t get the $7 million in federal funding, they are going to have to regroup and come up with another plan.

“We either scale-down the project, which I would hate to do, or we’ve got to look for other sources of revenue, but that $7 million dollars was a critical piece in funding the Capital Sports complex,” he said.

Different renderings of the Capital Sports Center.

Preliminary designs for the project included around six basketball courts, twelve volleyball courts, and around eight pickleball courts. Additionally, it would include a fitness center, a soccer field, a rock-climbing wall, a main gymnasium and other amenities.

Salango said that along with their current funding issue with the congressionally-directed spending dollars, they had already been running into other issues with the skyrocketing costs of construction.

He said what they were initially projecting as an $80 million dollar project, costs just kept going up, leaving them no choice but to scrap one of the original designs for the project– the Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool. Salango said that alone was going to cost $40 million.

Salango said the rising costs alone were already making figuring out the logistics very difficult.

“Usually you look at like a commercial construction project at 350 to 400 dollars a square foot, this was going to be substantially higher than that, so we moved the pool to phase B thinking then that we could finish the project without the pool at around $60 to $70 million,” Salango said.

While they plan to keep the other amenities without the pool at this point, they are still trying to navigate the increasing costs.

The future home of the Capital Sports Center in downtown Charleston. (Photo/MetroNews)

Salango said another issue they are looking at is the tariffs increasing the cost of steel, but he said he’s hopeful that will be more of short-term issue.

He said once they can acquire the congressionally-directed spending, they they will be back on track.

Salango said then they will be able to have ZMM Architects draw up some detailed designs, which will take between eight to twelves months, and then they will finally be ready to begin construction.

He said now it’s just a waiting game, but they are not giving up.

“You know, it’s one of those things I’m hoping we will be able to start soon, if we can get that money, and if we can’t then we’re just going to have to wait, and if we don’t get it this budget, then we’re going to apply next budget, I mean, it’s not going away, we’re just going to keep trying to work and try to get that funding,” Salango said.

He said they at least already have a blank slate to work with following the demolition of the former Macy’s building which took place last year.

The concept of the Capital Sports Center was originally announced in August of 2022.