A team including metro Atlanta developers and Major League Baseball heavyweights Bobby Cox, Fredi Gonzalez and Ned Yost are opening the first phase of the youth sports complex LakePoint Sporting Community near Lake Allatoona.

The 1,200-acre-plus compound is starting with baseball, lacrosse, volleyball and wakeboarding, but the project will add facilities for about 30 sports over the next few years. That will include an indoor arena and an Olympic-scale track and field complex.

Amid the project, the developers plan a retail and entertainment district with shops, restaurants, hotels and medical facilities. Developers say LakePoint will be a center for traveling youth sports leagues and the scouts that might help them move on to college or pro sports. It’ll also be a magnet of family activity, they say.

The plans call for about $1 billion in development and could create not only a major new destination but a large jobs center.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution takes a look at the project in the Sunday print edition and on our premium subscriber website, www.MyAJC.com.