The Bluegrass Sports Commission in Lexington, Kentucky, has ambitious plans to draw more youth sports to the area, while offering recreation for residents with a $25 million sports complex.
The proposal, presented to the Urban County Council this spring, includes a 134-acre site already owned by the city. The Commission has agreed to raise more than $6 million for the complex, and is asking the city to fund the remainder. The payoff? An economic study by Hunden Strategic Partners shows that over 20 years the complex could generate $450 million in spending at Lexington hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
Although the designs aren’t final, the site has room for more than 20 sports including baseball, softball, soccer and more. The tentative plan also calls for a playground as well as walking tracks that would connect to area trails.
“This could be a true economic driver for our city,” Brian Miller, president and CEO of the commission, told the Lexington Herald Leader. “Sports tourism is a $7 billion business. Even during the recession, people did not stop spending money on their kids.”
For Lexington, it means the opportunity to fill hotel rooms that are vacant when the University of Kentucky is not in session. A sports complex that would host different types of tournaments, including baseball, softball, soccer and football, could keep hotel rooms full from spring until late fall, Miller said.
The economic study showed that a sports complex could generate 7,000 teams a year with 50,000 hotel stays. And it wouldn’t be just for tournaments, as the commission already has touched base with high schools in the area about using the complex for practice and, perhaps, games, according to Phil Holoubek, a commission board member who has spearheaded efforts to build the youth sports complex.
Lexington has seen other municipalities, like nearby Elizabethtown, Kentucky, take advantage of youth sports to build their own complexes. With support from Kentucky Youth Soccer and UK Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart, among others, the complex looks to be yet another new project taking advantage of the demand for bigger, and better, youth sports facilities.