NITRO, W.Va. — The City of Nitro is getting ready to open a new sports complex.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Nitro Sports Complex will be held Friday morning, which will be followed up with a grand opening celebration of the complex and pool opening on Saturday at 11 a.m., according to city spokesman Joe Stevens.
Since breaking ground on the over $5 million sports complex last August, the pool had been one of the first projects as part of it to get underway, and Stevens said everything is now ready at the pool area besides the slides. He said they were delayed due to supply chain issues but will be coming later next month.
Stevens said Saturday’s celebration will come complete with Nitro High School students helping to serve the first guests of the new pool hundreds of burgers from a local chef.
“The really cool thing about it is, one of the councilmen, the city council at large, Bill Javins is known for providing hot dogs at our Halloween Hoedown, I mean he just throws out the grill and we have free hot dogs, well, this Saturday beginning at noon, he is the chef of 1,000 free cheeseburgers,” Stevens said.
Park Avenue in front of City Park will be shut down Saturday for the event, and a stage will be set up for The Esquires beginning at 7 p.m. and a fireworks display beginning at 9:30 p.m. Stevens expects a large crowd to attend.
He continued to tell MetroNews that he’s happy to see positive development happening not only in the Nitro community but through the efforts Mayor Kay Summers is leading in Clendenin, as well as in other communities throughout the region.
“It’s really cool, and it’s really neat what Mayor Goodwin is doing here in Charleston, what Frank Mullins is doing in South Charleston, all the way through the Kanawha-metro Valley area, you’re seeing good things happening,” he said.
Stevens said Nitro has been just one of the communities tearing down dilapidated buildings that had no longer served a purpose and had created an eyesore to residents. He said the project is now opening up a conversation of new potential to come to the area.
“There’s a lot of really good space out there that Mayor Casebolt and City Planner Reed are both hearing from businesses saying, ‘hey, we see the space, we are interested,” said Stevens.
Stevens said the tennis and pickleball courts at the Nitro Sports Complex are ahead of schedule and are expected to open sometime next month in June. He also said they plan to host the first major tournament at the new complex in mid-July– The Kanawha County Metro 911’s First Responders Tournament.