SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) –

The Springfield City Council set the wheels-in-motion on a new major sports complex near the airport that would bring tourism growth by bringing more national tournaments to the area.

Springfield already has private indoor sports facilities like the Fieldhouse on the south side and a large soccer complex on the north side, Lake Country, that’s operated under the umbrella of the park system.  But there’s now a move afoot to have one centrally-located athletic complex that would combine all those sports and possibly even add a restaurant, hotel and retail stores.  It would be located next to the Deer Lake Golf Course near the airport  at the same location as the new training facility for Sporting Springfield, the youth development program affiliated with the Sporting KC Academy.

The idea was presented to the city council on Friday by city manager Jason Gage and Tulsa-based real estate developer Robert Phillips, who wants the city to chip in about $4.4 million of the $18 million cost for the athletic part of the complex to pay for infrastructure improvements like roads and sewers.

The site would include a dozen outdoor soccer fields and indoor facilities with room for four basketball,  eight volleyball and two indoor soccer areas.

Study projections presented to the council show the indoor facility alone would attract 15 regional and national tournaments, 37,000 attendees spending $16 million and using 21,000 hotel room nights.

The council gave the go-ahead for city officials to work on the proposed project and although there’s still a lot that would have to fall in place for this idea to become a reality, the goal is for construction to begin next October on the athletic part of the project with a completion date of March 2022.

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