Study says indoor youth sports venue would generate millions for Hamilton County
What a potential indoor sports venue in Hamilton County could entail. (Courtesy: Chattanooga Tourism Company)
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Does Chattanooga need new youth sports venues?
A new study says yes.
The Chattanooga Tourism Company presented their recent study on the state of youth sports facilities in Hamilton County to the county commission Wednesday evening.
In that study, they say our area is missing out on millions of dollars a year in revenue that could be drummed up through youth basketball, volleyball, and cheerleading tournaments.
This is because our area does not have a large indoor youth sports complex, akin to the large outdoor sports complex at Camp Jordan, which is receiving upgrades in its own right.
The study, conducted by firm KemperSports, states that an indoor complex should have at least 10 to 12 basketball courts, which could be converted up to 24 volleyball courts.
They believe the project, which would cost anywhere from $53 to $62 million dollars, would generate at least $70 million dollars in spending in its first five years of operation.
John Di Meglio, the Vice President of Operations for KemperSports, said, “Finding the right indoor facilities space that can host large tourism events that can generate over 1 million visitors a year at full capacity would make all the sense in the world for this community.”
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp says that Chattanooga is uniquely positioned to take advantage of a gap in the sports market across the region, as one such venue his team has studied is a major sports complex in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Mayor Wamp, said, “This market is perfectly located. We have the right population. We have the right hotel base to look at an indoor sports facility… One of the reasons we have this opportunity is that none of those cities that we consider our competitors or peer cities, none of them have yet gotten into this market. We know, we usually have the traffic to prove it, that we are here at the convergence of three interstates, and the existing tourism infrastructure and attractions in Chattanooga would compliment a new venue.”
He adds that the existing outdoor facilities continue to need work to compete with surrounding facilities.
Mayor Wamp said, “(The study) shows us that we really need to be more resilient in our rectangles (soccer, football fields) and other work we got flooding issues. We need to do some turf and work on drainage and then entertain this indoor facility possibility.”
You can read the full study here.
