Indiana cities cashing in on sports tourism as new facilities rise
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowHamilton County is seeing a sports tourism boom that’s expected to grow with the opening of two new facilities over the next year.
The Fishers Event Center is scheduled to open after Thanksgiving. It will be the new home of the Indy Fuel beginning in the 2024-25 season. The Fishers Freight professional indoor football team and Indy Ignite professional women’s volleyball team will play there starting in 2025.
“There’s gonna be about 150 nights a year where there’s gonna be something going on in this building back here,” Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness told Inside INdiana Business. “We’re wrapping it with a bunch of restaurants, entertainment venues, things of that nature … so really, this becomes more of an entertainment district.”
Fadness says there’s around $1 billion worth of real estate development around the 7,500 seat arena. He says that not only bring economic development, but quality of life.
“Bringing all those people in, having them drive our restaurants and our hotels, all that leads to a sustainable economic model,” Fadness said. “Fishers residents, what I learn more and more every day is they want to be entertained close to their home. They want to work close to their home.”
READ MORE: Fishers Event Center schedule filling up ahead of November opening
Less than 10 miles away, construction on the Noblesville Events Center is on schedule to be complete next May.
“We are now a player in regional sports attraction in central Indiana,” Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen told IIB last year. “This is going to bring tens of millions of dollars of annual economic impact to Noblesville, which is thus going to continue to buoy Hamilton County’s growth and central Indiana’s growth,”
The 3,400-seat arena, which will serve as the home of the Indiana Pacers’ G-League team, as well as entertainment, meetings and other sporting events.
Neighboring Westfield has seen success with the Grand Park Sports Campus, which opened in 2010 and is now one of the busiest sports facilities in the country. Grand Park says it welcomes over 2.5 million visitors a year and has helped Westfield attract over $1.5 billion in economic development.
Westfield is creating a Grand Park master plan for undeveloped areas around the sports campus.
Across Indiana, other sports facilities are opening or under construction.
Last week, the City of Greenwood opened the Greenwood Sports Park featuring eight baseball and softball diamonds, a soccer field and cricket pitch field.
“This is going to host travel teams on the weekends. It’ll host city residents during the week for our softball leagues and get them going again,” Myers told Inside INdiana Business. “Baseball is something we’ve been lacking on as a city. The travel ball especially, we haven’t been able to hit that league.”
Other amenities include the city’s second splash pad, an accessible playground and trails. Myers says the city is excited for the economic development opportunities in the area as well as the community building that can happen around the space.
“We’ll see more restaurants come in. We’ll probably see a hotel or two come in out of this. We’ll have business owners looking at it. To have a sports complex here on the south side of the city, [it’s] one more amenity for those businesses to bring business into Greenwood,” Myers said. “We want Greenwood to be a city where our neighbors neighbor again … it’s getting people out of the houses, bringing them here, and getting to know their neighbors.”
In Madison County, the city of Elwood is accepting bids for a proposed sports complex that could cost upwards of $10 million.
In Northern Indiana, the Mishawaka Fieldhouse is scheduled to open later this month.
When complete, the fieldhouse will feature 19 volleyball courts that can be converted into full basketball courts, a 70 yard turf field, batting cages, and a gym all for athletes, among other amenities.