Clinton to open new recreation complex with ribbon cutting Sept. 8
September 1, 2026
The City of Clinton will mark the grand opening of the Clinton Recreation Complex with a ribbon cutting Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 5 p.m., opening a facility that has been more than two decades in the making and one city leaders expect to reshape youth sports and tournament travel in Laurens County.
The event will be held at the complex at 512 Belle Acres Drive in Clinton, off S.C. Highway 56. The public is invited.
For a town that has built much of its identity around Friday nights and Saturday mornings on the ball field, the opening carries weight well beyond a new set of fields. The complex gives Clinton its first city-built and city-owned outdoor recreation campus, replacing a patchwork of aging neighborhood parks and borrowed fields that has served local leagues for generations.
The project traces back to 2008, when Clinton City Council established a hospitality tax that would eventually help fund it. In November 2018, council voted unanimously to purchase up to 170 acres off Highway 56 for the complex, and the city held a groundbreaking ceremony in 2020. Work stalled while council brought the plan in line with available funding, then resumed after council authorized a construction contract covering fields, lighting, drainage and a roadway into the site.
The Clinton Family YMCA will handle programming at the complex under an agreement with the city. City crews maintain the grounds and fields, while YMCA staff coordinate league play and tournaments. The Y has shifted its youth soccer and baseball programs to the new site, consolidating games that had been spread across other locations.
That tournament capacity is what has local officials watching closely. Multi-field complexes draw weekend travel ball, showcase events and regional tournaments, and the families who follow them fill restaurants, hotels and gas stations. Clinton, sitting minutes from Interstate 26 and within easy reach of Greenville, Columbia and Spartanburg, is positioned to compete for that business in a way it never has been before.
The site also reflects a broader vision for public recreation in the city, with plans that have included walking paths, playgrounds and open space alongside the athletic fields.
The Laurens County Chamber of Commerce will take part in the ribbon cutting.
More information about the complex and its programs is available through the City of Clinton and the Clinton Family YMCA.
