Plans for a $42 million sports complex in far western Kentucky advanced Wednesday as local officials signed an interlocal agreement at the Paducah-McCracken County Convention & Expo Center.
Members of the Paducah City Commission, the McCracken County Fiscal Court and the county sports tourism commission put pen to paper in front of dozens of local athletes, parents and coaches.
McCracken Judge-Executive Craig Clymer heralded the project as a potentially transformational one for economic development in the region.
“It's going to give our children a state of the art facility for sports,” he said. “It's going to bring thousands of tourists and millions of dollars supporting the complex yearly, it's revitalizing our local shops and community and the complex will also … establish McCracken County as a major travel ball destination for decades to come.”
Paducah Mayor George Bray – who had held some reservations as the two governments worked on this project and a separate one to fund a new E911 communications system – spoke about the necessity of unity when it comes to collaborations like the sports complex project.
“We knew from the get go that it was absolutely a project that the community wanted. We've had a lot of I’s to dot, and a lot of T’s to cross, but we're here today because we have come together as a community,” he said. “It's not easy, because the two governments have different goals, but this is a goal that we all can put front and center.”
Clymer took attendees through a rundown of the project’s history, which dates to 2019.
Plans began percolating after he learned the McCracken County Youth Soccer Complex, located on Coleman Road, sat on top of a reclaimed landfill – something he considers unacceptable. The fiscal court then acted with the city to levy a more substantial transient room tax on hotel rooms to act as a funding mechanism for the project.
The next major step was the creation of the McCracken County Sports Tourism Commission to serve as a county tourism bureau and governing body for these efforts. This was followed by the donation of the former Bluegrass Downs site to the effort in 2020 and the official partnering of the county and city on the project in 2021.
Funding for the project comes jointly from the city and county, along with monies from the American Rescue Plan Act. The complex will be geared towards hosting soccer, softball and baseball tournaments to attract tourists.
Todd Stewart is the assistant girl’s soccer coach at McCracken County High School and also coaches club soccer for Pumas Football Academy. He thinks this development could see the number of local athletes in club leagues increase if travel costs are mitigated with local games.
“As a travel soccer parent and coach, I've spent many weekends leaving after school on Friday … checking into a hotel room staying overnight, spending a ton of money, three meals a day, getting back really late on a Sunday night and it's gonna be nice to not have to do that,” he said. “This is huge for at least my family and our experience with this community and soccer. It's just come light years away from where it started years ago.”
Paducah Mayor Pro Tem Sandra Wilson said the project is a symbol of the community’s confidence in itself.
“It is a great day in Paducah and McCracken County,” she said. “I think that this just shows that we are a progressive community and that we are willing to invest in ourselves.”
Sports tourism committee chairman Jim Dudley has been traveling out of town with his own children for years to go to tournaments. He said this is the community’s chance to capitalize on a growing industry.
“As Ray said in Field of Dreams: ‘If you build it, they will come,’ right? So we're going to build it and we're going to expect everybody to come and we’ll be able to show our community and how great it is,” he said. “[Sports tourism is] a $3.2 billion industry in the United States. So now we get to get our piece of that.”
STC vice chair Chris Hill said the complex’s return on investment will be high and easy to see in years to come.
“Yes, we're spending some money now to make the outdoor complex reality. But the amount of spending coming into the area, it's going to outweigh it hand over fist,” he said. “When we look back, this would be one of these things that helped Paducah to level up on the region and on the state level to help bring more people into our area.”
McCracken County commissioner Bill Bartleman is hopeful that the complex will be a big boost for local athletes’ prospects for scholarships and talents.
“It's going to hone the skills of these men and young men and women here who play baseball, soccer, softball and all the other sports,” he said. “They play at the high school during the school year. In the summertime, they can hone their skills by playing on these quality fields. And the results of honing their skills is they're gonna get college scholarships, and save themselves an awful lot of money.”
Clymer says time is of the essence for this project, which is projected to generate as much as $3 million per month in economic impact when operational.
“You know the longer it just sits there, the more revenue we're missing out on. So there's a lot of incentive to get it done as quickly as possible.”
Once the interlocal agreement is approved by the state, the final planning and design phases will begin. Officials say the yet unnamed complex will be complete in fall 2024.
