Visitors to The Highlands in Ohio County have started to see signs that the development of an amenity-filled shooting center is taking place on land between Bob Evans and the Hampton Inn & Suites.
Officials with the Guntry Club announced at the end of October their intentions to construct and operate a “high-end shooting range” at The Highlands. Guntry worked on the development with the Ohio County Commission, the Ohio County Development Authority, and the Regional Economic Development Partnership, and the company hired JD&E Construction as the general contractor for the $13 million project. Company partner Rick Landsman said the goal is to open in the Fall of 2024.
“We’re working with the architects and the builders, and our building is progressing more and more every day. It’s a very exciting process,” explained Brian Wolf, a 26-year veteran of law enforcement in Baltimore County. “We just met the other day about the design for the lobby area. We know there’s going to be the front desk, but what else? That’s some of the decisions that are being made right now.
“We’ll continue that through the whole building process so we can hopefully be ready to open by early Fall,” he explained. “We’re very anxious to get to the opening so we can start meeting the residents in that area. We’ve worked with our economic development team there in West Virginia, but when the doors open, we’ll meet the neighbors.”
Guntry was founded in 2018 in a suburb of Baltimore – Owings Mills, Maryland – and has attracted more than 2,800 members. The facility features 34 indoor ranges, expert instructors, a fully immersive simulator, and gunsmithing services.
“Our facility in Maryland is about 87,000 square feet and our club at The Highlands will be about 44,000 square feet, so that will be the biggest difference in the two locations, but most of everything we have and do in Owings Mills will be in West Virginia, too, but on a smaller scale,” Wolf explained. “And we will have our ranges. We’ll have a 100-yard range, and, of course, the 25-yard range.
“We’ll have the simulator room at The Highlands location, and we’ll have our café and the retail store, too,” he said. “As far as the ranges are concerned, we have five lanes in Maryland and we’ll have four in West Virginia.”
Wolf and other Guntry officials have been contacting and working with members of law enforcement throughout the Upper Ohio Valley because the club also will offer training services for first responders and its local membership groups.
“With us, it’s all about community, and that’s not just a buzzword with us. We want everyone to experience what we teach with safety training and education. We do a lot of that here (in Maryland), and we’re going to do a lot of it at our location at The Highlands,” Wolf said. “We’re looking forward to working with local law enforcement and we want to have a lot of fun with the public.
“The Guntry Club here in Maryland is a fun place because everything we have is under one roof, and it’s going to be the same there,” he added. “I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people.”
And food, too?
“It’s going to have a terrific café that will have people visiting us just for the food. The menu is pretty extensive because you’ll be able to get hamburgers and hot dogs, sure, but also salads and panninis, and even crab cake sandwiches,” Wolf revealed. “When we all decided to get into this business, we knew we wanted it to be more than a gun range.
“I think we’ve accomplished that goal,” he said. “And it’ll be the same at Guntry at The Highlands.”
