MYRTLE BEACH - Thanks to baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr., tournament baseball will soon have a new home in Myrtle Beach.

Ripken came to Myrtle Beach on Friday morning to announce plans for the opening of the Ripken Experience. Gov. Mark Sanford also attended the announcement and groundbreaking.

Plans call for the Ripken Experience to be a baseball tournament facility that will span 50 acres. It will be built along 10th Avenue North and the U.S. 17 Bypass in Myrtle Beach. That’s near the Myrtle Waves water park.

The Burroughs and Chapin Co. of Myrtle Beach will partner with Ripken Baseball Inc. to develop the baseball complex. Once completed, the complex will have 14 baseball fields, a training facility and a team village with shops. Developers said the complex will take a private investment of $22.4 million and more than $1.7 million in public funds. The public funds will pay for public road and stormwater drainage systems.

Ripken said Myrtle Beach was the best location for the project.

“To me, looking around at other opportunities and other places, Myrtle Beach was almost a no-brainer for me,” he said. “I thought it was a perfect plan.”

The Ripken Experience will be part of Burroughs & Chapin’s most recent sports tourism venture, which will be called the Myrtle Beach Sports Resort. The first phase of the baseball complex should be completed in June next year. That phase will consist of 11 fields.

Developers hope to attract teams of all ages. They will make the fields available for local residents. Ripken targets youth teams in many of his summer camp projects. He operates the Ripken Youth Baseball Academy in Aberdeen, Md., among several sports ventures.

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