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SUSA Soccer this month revealed plans for the $12 million Phase 1 of the new SUSA Sports Complex, which will be the hub for the company's Long Island operations.
"Our vision is to create an elite platform for player developments with state of the art facilities across Long Island with an accredited and dedicated coaching staff," Moussa Sy, SUSA president and director of coaching, said in a statement.
Company officials said the first phase was "a major steppingstone" that would include construction of four lighted outdoor artificial turf fields, and a field house with locker rooms, office and classroom space, a trainer's room and restrooms.
The facility will also have an amenity area with a plaza, food court, playground and other outdoor spaces.
The soccer complex has been nearly a decade in the making, with Islip Town board members voting unanimously in September to approve a deal to allow the project to move forward.
"It's been a long time coming," Sy said Monday. "We've been waiting for this for over 15 years now ... starting out very small in communities and training organizations to become a club of this magnitude, not only on Long Island but the country. It's been a dream come true for everybody."
Brothers Duo 3 LLC of Hauppauge is developing the project and taking on a 40-year lease for a 32-acre parcel of town land on Carleton Avenue at DPW Drive in Central Islip.
"This is a win-win for the Town of Islip and for soccer players and enthusiasts all over Suffolk County and Long Island, who'll now have the opportunity to train and develop their skills in a state-of-the-art sportscomplex right here in the Town of Islip," Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter said in a statement.
The SUSA soccer academy is to be the tenant at the soccer complex with programming for children and teenagers, officials said.
Efforts to build a soccer complex on the site date to 2010, when Yaphank developer Andy Borgia contracted with the town to construct a $45 million, 300,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor sports complex at the same site. It was never built.
In February the Brothers Duo company was assigned Borgia's lease, Islip officials said.
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