Board to review X-Plex event (4/30/05)

Several hundred tickets have already been sold for a concert scheduled to take place in two weeks at X-Plex Extreme Competition Park, but the show could be stopped if the Portland Planning Commission doesn’t approve.

Heavy metal band Drowning Pool is scheduled to perform Saturday, May 14, to kick off the opening of the park being developed by rural Portland resident Glynn Barber.

Plans to hold concerts at the park, which is being constructed adjacent to the Portland Industrial Park, were not included in the final proposal when it was approved by the planning commission last fall.

Jay/Portland Building and Planning administrator Bill Milligan said Friday any changes to a final plan need to be approved by the planning commission. The concert would be considered a change to the final plans, he said.

The planning commission will meet Thursday at 5 p.m. to discuss changes at Barber’s park. The meeting will be held at the Portland Fire Station.

Planning commission president Vicki Tague said Friday the commission members will first have to decide if their approval is needed each time Barber intends to hold an event at the park which was not included in the final plans. Tague said she would consider changes to the final plan to be physical changes, rather than adding or subtracting events.

Commission members will have to decide if changes to the park will include event changes before a decision will be made on whether holding concerts will be allowed, she said.

The sports park is classified as a planned unit development extraordinary. This is the first such development the commission has dealt with since Tague has been a member of the planning commission, she said.

Jay County Development Corporation executive director Robert Quadrozzi said before any events can be held at the park, the lease agreement Barber has with the Portland Economic Development Corporation must be signed.

Quadrozzi said he expects the agreement for the spec building and the 190 acres needed for the park will be signed early next week.

Barber said recently he plans to hold several concerts at the park. The night of the May 14 concert, the park will open at 6 p.m. Other bands set to perform that night are Dry Kill Logic, Opiate for the Masses and Ten Years. The show will start at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets went on sale April 22.

The stage will be located northeast of the spec building, which is located east of Qualtech Tool & Engineering and Moser Engineering.

For this concert, the stage and equipment will be rented from a company in Berne. Parking is available in the grassy area next to the concert area. There is a fee for parking.

The concert was planned as a way to kick off the opening of the park and draw people there for future events, Ryan McCombs, general manager of the park, said.

McCombs set up the concert through his connections with Dallas-based Drowning Pool. McCombs, the former lead singer of SOiL said the two bands did some shows together, and the members became friends.

Barber’s long-term goal is to construct a mobile stage for bands to rent. Concerts would be held in the infield of the three-eighths-mile dirt oval track, once it is built, said McCombs. This track will be banked, which will help to muffle some of the sound, he said.

Barber would eventually like to hold the concerts indoors in a 150,000-square foot building, which he plans to construct next year on the east side of the park, McCombs said.

McCombs said he hopes the community embraces the concert concept, just as it has the sports park project. He said Barber plans to have a variety of shows including gospel, country, rock and blues.[[In-content Ad]]