Elwood seeks funding for sports complex
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The city of Elwood is requesting funding from the Madison County Commissioners to put toward development of a regional sports complex.
Our partners at The Herald Bulletin report city officials are requesting $1 million in funds provided by the developer of the Wild Cat Wind Farm for economic development projects.
Rob Sparks, executive director of Madison County Economic Development, told the publication about $500,000 remaining from that funding.
Elwood Mayor Todd Jones on Tuesday also asked the commissioners to transfer a $1 million appropriation from 2018 for a robotics training facility that was not completed to go toward the sports complex project.
Jones told the commissioners the complex would include a 50,000-square-foot facility with dual-purpose basketball and volleyball courts, as well as outdoor baseball and softball fields. He said the city has an organization that wants to manage the 79-acre property and the city is in negotiations with the property owner to build the complex.
The mayor cited a feasibility study that said such a complex would bring an estimated $9 million in tourism for the city and county, and could create over 100 jobs.
Jones said the complex would impact thousands of youth athletes.
“It would be used as a travel facility, and we would bring people from all the outlying communities and counties that currently do not have a place to play in Madison County,” he said.
The complex would also support additional hotel business, according to the mayor. He said a site along State Road 37 is already being prepped for a hotel, and more could come.
“Having an influx of people every weekend would be a great shot in the arm for the success of not only one hotel, but potentially two hotels coming into the city of Elwood,” Jones said.
Jones told the commissioners the city plans to apply for grant funding from the second round of the state’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI 2.0, which launched this week.
An estimated overall cost for the project was not immediately provided.