Dirk McCormick admits that he and his Legacy Pointe Development Business partner, Steve Luker, felt “a little short-changed” at Wednesday’s groundbreaking for the future Scheels Sports Park on South MacArthur Boulevard, just north of the Interstate 72 interchange.
But McCormick warned that the incident was only the end of the chapter.
“We’re very excited to be done with chapter one,” McCormick said, before the groundbreaking. “There’s still a lot of hard work left to go on the project to get to the grand opening. So Steve and I will definitely be celebrating.”
McCormick expects the 95-acre multisport outdoor and indoor development located behind the Scheels superstore to host its first tournaments for traveling youth teams in the spring of 2025.
In addition:The first locally owned cannabis dispensary has opened in Southern View
The sports complex will include synthetic turf multi-purpose fields that can be configured into 14 baseball and softball fields or eight full-size soccer, football, and lacrosse fields.
A 190,000-square-foot indoor dome, considered the largest wind-supported structure in the world, will house year-round sports, including six basketball courts that can be converted into 12 volleyball court or 16 pickleball courts, and one of the multi-purpose turf fields.
Local tourism officials estimate the complex will generate about $30 million in new spending annually.
In addition to the tournaments hosted at the sports park on weekends, local user groups include Springfield District 186, Springfield Park District, Springfield Area Soccer Association (SASA) and The Hitting Center.
Scheels, which acquired the naming rights in 2021, is one of the project’s pinnacle partners, along with the Springfield Clinic.
Ryan McCrady, president and chief executive officer of the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance, said the project took “a lot of work and a lot of faith” to get there Wednesday.
McCrady has always stood in as a spokesperson for Luker and McCormick and has often fended off naysayers who insist the project will never come to fruition.
“When you’re working on a project like this, you have to focus on the project and not get too caught up in the process,” McCrady said afterward. “The result is what we want. Things like this take so long that the process has to be agile and adjust as things change. Look at how our economy has changed in the last three and a half year.
“You can’t commit to a process in a vacuum. We had to make a lot of pivots and a lot of changes, but the result is what matters and we’re here.”
The total cost is estimated to be between $65 and $70 million. The city of Springfield’s assistance comes through a hotel-motel tax incentive, with 2% of the city’s 8% hotel-motel tax earmarked for the complex. There are sales taxes and property tax rebates that also help.
Sports Facilities Companies, based in Clearwater, Florida, will manage the complex’s operations, from maintenance to hosting events.
Todd Yancey, vice president of venue management, said seven to 14 full-time people will staff Springfield with a part-time staff of 100.
Speaking earlier in the week, District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill said she was happy to see the project get off the ground.
District 186 will get a “preferred rate” to use the fields and courts for practices and games at the complex, a projected cost of $108,000 for 2,160 hours of use per year.
“This is something we’ve been working on for a long time, and it will give (public high school and middle school teams) some much-needed practice fields and some opportunities for games, especially if had a bad time,” Gill said.
Mia Volpert, a junior softball pitcher for Springfield High School, echoed the sentiment.
“Baseball and softball have many difficulties at the time and pose many challenges, but access to these fields is a unique opportunity for us,” Volpert said at the groundbreaking.
Coming just one day after the new Breeze Airways announced direct flights from Springfield to Orlando and Tampa Bay starting in December, Mayor Misty Buscher said it turned out to be “a great, great week for city ​​of Springfield and the citizens of the community. .
“It put Springfield on the map for sports tourism,” Buscher added. “You’re going to have people coming into the community who have never been here and probably never been here.”
In remarks before the groundbreaking, McCrady thanked Luker and McCormick for not being afraid to “dream big, take risks, and bring together multiple parties to bring these things together.
“This project will change how Springfield looks at Springfield,” McCrady added. “This will change how other people look at Springfield. This is a sign that we can achieve great things in our community when we work together, between the private sector and the public sector, all locally government, financial institutions.
“No one can say this project was easy. However, I think we can say it was worth every effort and determination and collaboration and conversation it took to get here.”
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.