Ceremonial shovels turning over
dirt Sept. 20 signaled the start of construction for a $67 million sports complex
that city officials said will make Springfield a popular destination for young
people competing on traveling athletic teams from throughout the Midwest and
beyond.
“This puts Springfield on the map for sports tourism,” Springfield
Mayor Misty Buscher said at a groundbreaking ceremony on the city’s south side
at the future site of the Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Pointe.
About 300 people from the area’s business community and units of local government, as well as a handful of young soccer players and high school athletes, turned out for the groundbreaking ceremony, capping a multi-year effort to create a 95-acre indoor and outdoor site expected to open by the end of 2025.
About 250,000 people from across the country are expected to visit
Springfield each year to use the sports complex, increasing visitors overall by
10% to 15% after the first year of operation.
“You will have people coming to the community who have never been
here and may never have come here,” Buscher said.
Buscher, who took office in May after defeating Langfelder in his
bid for a third consecutive term, asked residents to welcome athletes and their
families and encourage them to eat at local restaurants, stay at Springfield
hotels, visit historic sites and patronize local shops.
Ryan McCrady, president and chief executive officer of the
nonprofit Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance, helped to spearhead the project
and said, “Sports tourism is a great way to separate people from their money,
and we want to do it in Springfield to benefit our local businesses.”
McCrady, who has acted as a spokesperson for landowners Steve
Luker and Dirk McCormick of Legacy Pointe Development, thanked Springfield-area
elected officials who voted to take part in economic incentives to move the
project forward.
He also thanked business people such as Luker and McCormick “who
are not afraid to dream big, take risks and gather a lot of parties together to
help bring things to reality.
“This project will change how Springfield sees Springfield,”
McCrady said. “It’ll change how other people see Springfield. It’s a sign that
we can achieve big things in our community when we work together between the
public sector, the private sector, all the large governmental bodies (and) the
financial institutions.”
Sales taxes and hotel-motel taxes paid in the city over a 23-year
period are expected to pay for half of the complex’s construction costs,
totaling about $33.5 million.
The rest will be financed by the developers, which McCrady said
have received financing commitments from about a dozen area banks, including
Bank of Springfield.
The Springfield City Council recently dissolved the former South
Central Business District to create a new one with a maximum 23-year lifespan
that coincides with other economic incentives in the city’s agreement with
Legacy Pointe Development.
The business district, about double the size of the previous
district, includes the sports complex and imposes an additional 1% sales tax on
purchases at Scheels and other businesses in the district for use by the city
for infrastructure improvements in the district.
The development agreement also calls for more than 70% of the
city’s portion of sales taxes in the business district, above a base of $1.48
million annually, to be reimbursed to the sports complex, which will be owned
and operated by Legacy Pointe Development.
Springfield city government, as well as Sangamon County
Government, District 186, the Springfield Park District, Lincoln Land Community
College, Capital Township, Springfield Airport Authority and other governmental
units agreed to not collect additional property taxes associated with the
construction for the life of the 23-year agreement.
All of the entities working together to get the project moving “really
shows Springfield’s strength – how we can pull together if everybody keeps
their mind on the goal, and that should be what’s in the best interest of the
city and our residents moving forward,” Langfelder told Illinois Times
before the groundbreaking.
“This is a decades-long project that Springfield always yearned
for … and we appreciate all the partners that brought it to fruition,”
Langfelder said.
McCrady said the sports complex “will be the best youth sports
destination in Illinois because of the outdoor and indoor facilities, its
proximity to interstates and central location in Illinois to attract athletes
from across the region.”
The outdoor areas will include lighted turf fields for soccer,
softball, rugby, lacrosse, football, baseball and other sports.
The site will include an air-supported, inflated and domed
structure for year-round indoor use. It will cover 190,000 square feet and
provide enough space for eight basketball courts, 16 volleyball courts,
performance areas and turf training areas, McCrady said.
Compared with the nearby Scheels store, the domed structure will
be at least as tall and twice as long, he said.
Some city officials have said the groundbreaking and banks’
approval of financing for the sports park’s developers was delayed somewhat by
the fact that the city, under Langfelder’s administration, didn’t pursue
creation of a new business district.
But Langfelder, in response to questions from Illinois Times, said there were several factors that contributed to
the delay, including the opinion of Jim Zerkle, the city attorney appointed by
Langfelder, that the City Council could take action to extend the life of the
former business district so it coincided with bond-related borrowing to pay
project costs.
Buscher said the legal advice she received after taking office
pointed to the need for dissolving the old district and creating a new
district. The council didn’t have the power to extend the life of the former
district, she said.
