Elwood seeks developers for $10M sports complex
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The city of Elwood is now accepting bids for a proposed sports complex that could cost upwards of $10 million.
At its meeting last week, the Elwood City Council approved a Request for Proposals for the project, which would include a 50,000-square-foot indoor facility with multiple basketball and volleyball courts, as well as four baseball and softball diamonds.
Mayor Todd Jones says such a complex would create a “demand driver” for the city, which has seen a population decline since the late 2000s when General Motors closed its facilities in nearby Anderson.
Jones told Inside INdiana Business the idea for the sports complex came after traveling the date with his daughter for softball tournaments.
“I got to see the impact that it has on communities when several teams, parents, grandparents, players are all all in one area,” he said. “Once we’re there, we’re spending all of our money in that location, whether that’s breakfast, lunch, band aids, Gatorade, hotel accommodations, all of those things. We’re seeing that being spent in other communities and communities that were even smaller than Elwood. And when we started looking at it, I was like, ‘Well, why can’t Elwood fit a piece of that puzzle and get some of that pie that everyone else is seeing?'”
The proposed sports complex would be located on a 72-acre site next to the Elwood High School football stadium. Jones said a feasibility study found that the project could generate $15 million to $20 million for the local economy annually.
“Being able to try to bring Elwood back, to have some of the amenities that it had when General Motors was thriving, the goal is to be able to create a demand driver, and that demand driver is to have an influx of people coming to your community on a weekly basis,” he said.
The mayor said the project would also add to the local workforce. The feasibility study found that a sports complex could support more than 100 new jobs that would include positions to run the facility, as well as coaches, referees, and umpires.
Elwood is located about 50 miles northeast of Indianapolis.
The city is looking to create a public-private partnership with a developer to fund the project. Part of the funding would come from a $500,000 allocation from the county’s wind farm economic development fund, Jones said.
The RFP is expected to stay open for about 90 days, according to the mayor, at which point officials will review the bids. Jones said once a bid is selected, a more clear timeline for construction will be known.
The sports complex project comes in conjunction with a pair of hotel projects in the works for Elwood. Jones said one of the hotel developers, which was not named, is looking to purchase two acres near the intersection of State Roads 37 and 28 on the city’s east side to build a 54-room hotel.
A timeline for those projects was not provided.