Steven Spearie
The State Journal-Register
Legacy Pointe Development Company managing partner Steve Luker said a proposed sports complex for the south side of Springfield was “a generational-changing development.”
The Springfield City Council gave the go-ahead for the $65 million, 95-acre project, just off MacArthur Boulevard near Interstate 72, by a 7-3 vote.
Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams Jr. and Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin voted against the project. All three spoke during the more than 90-minute debate that preceded the vote.
Phase 1 of the construction will most likely be the outdoor part of the facility, which would include eight multi-use turf fields for football soccer and lacrosse. The price tag on the outdoor segment would be just over $36 million.
The second phase would feature indoor facilities like basketball and volleyball courts. That price tag would be just over $28 million.
The idea is to stage 60- to 100-team tournaments to the sports complex on weekends, said Jim Arnold, a national business developer with Clearwater, Fla.-based Sports Facilities Advisory (SFA).
SFA, Luker said, is connected to national tournaments already. The company also manages more than a dozen sports and entertainment facilities around the country and that role through its sister company, Sports Facilities Management, could continue in Springfield.
According to the National Association of Sports Commissions, sport tourism was an approximately $11.4 billion industry,
Arnold said the idea is to make the facility itself a destination and that in additional to the fields and courts, there would be “experiential items, like miniature golf, road courses and food truck courts” particular to Springfield.
“This creates a brand new market for us,” said Scott Dahl, director of the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau. Dahl said the sports complex had the potential of bringing in 250,000 new visitors along with about $30 million in new spending each year.
The city’s funding for the complex would come from a 1% increase in the hotel/motel tax, which would be solely dedicated to the development, and a rebate on the city’s portion of sales tax collected at Legacy Pointe above a baseline amount.
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McMenamin said the city was spending too much public money for a single project.
“It could be as much as $40 million and the city has many other needs that that money could go towards,” he said. “We’re committing at least $1.2 million of hotel/motel tax per year for the next 23 years. That’s a lot of money that could go for other purposes.”
Acknowledging the city needs to tap into sports tourism, Gregory said he had a difficult time supporting the project because he didn’t think it would be “inclusive of the entire city.
“The sports that we’re talking about, they have a certain demographic,” he added.
Williams, who was stumping for a community benefits agreement, said if the city was going to use taxpayer money, “we have to find a way to make sure in writing it’s going to be inclusive for everybody.”
Among those who spoke out against the sports complex with Al and Steve Klunick of The Gym and Bruce Wible of the 8th Street Gym, both in Springfield.
“It’s going to put us in a position where it’s highly likely we’re not going to survive,” Al Klunick said.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 