Twin brothers from Delhi are opening up a baseball complex on the west side of Oneonta this fall.
The Hill City Hitting Center is under construction at the West Gate Plaza on Winney Hill Road at Chestnut Street.
Chad and Nate Rockefeller are working on the project with an eye on opening in November. The brothers are 2007 Delaware Academy graduates and 2011 Hartwick College graduates.
Their interest in sports fields and practice facilities came from working at Delhi’s Sportsfield Specialties, Chad Rockefeller said during an interview with The Daily Star on Friday, Aug. 14.
“The interest is more or less growing up in Delhi,” he said. “Our region is such a hub for sports construction. It is the better portion of the economy in Delhi.”
After starting with Sportsfield, the brothers opened their own company, Goal Pros, in 2022. Their company installs hitting facilities.
The Rockefellers were football players at Hartwick, but Chad said they saw a need in the region for a baseball facility like the complexes they are building elsewhere for clients.
“We have been building these facilities around the country for three of four years. We’ve kind of figured out already what works,” he said. When the space in West Gate opened up last fall, the brothers looked at the opportunity and decided, “if anyone can do it here, it is us,” Rockefeller said.
The Hill City complete will be less than a mile from Cooperstown All-Star Village in West Oneonta. It will have state-of-the-art HitTrax equipment that is not available anyplace else in the region, Rockefeller said.
There will be a total of 8,500 square feet in the complex with four batting tunnels, plus a pitching lab in an oversized double tunnel.
Rockefeller said when the center is complete, Hill City will be able to host baseball and softball teams for training sessions and ever for simulated games, where teams can hit against computerized defenses.
HitTrax has programming for baseball and softball.
“Really there is not anything like it available to the public in Central New York,” he said. “It just doesn’t exist here, yet.”
The West Gate complex is being renovated now, and the Rockefellers will officially get the keys in September. Their November target open is still in pencil, but an official opening date will be announced later this year.