Turning vacant land into playgrounds for youths, adults

by kathy a. bolten

 Work is expected to begin this spring on a sports campus in the Norwalk Central development in Norwalk. The 70-acre mixed-use project will include a heavy dose of recreation and sports amenities that officials hope will attract visitors and new residents to the Warren County community.

The sports campus will include a recreation center with multiuse court spaces; outdoor turf for a variety of sports; parkland and trails; and an indoor sports training complex where athlete development programs will be held.

“In the past five years or so, there’s been a shift in what people want to do,” said Hollie Zajicek, Norwalk’s economic development director. “Adults want to do more physical, experience-based things. Parents are willing to spend money on their kids but they want to do it on a more local level. … All of that helps spur the trend of recreation [and] sports-activity-based developments.”

Norwalk is one of several Des Moines-area communities transforming vacant ground into areas for athletic competitions and practices as well as for leisure and recreation activities. Other projects include:

1. Johnston Ignit Sports Complex at 5346 Merle Hay Road. The complex will include a 208,500-square-foot recreation facility that will house an indoor track, a field house, classrooms, meeting space and eight multipurpose courts. Construction of the facility is expected to be completed this spring. Also planned are outdoor volleyball courts, baseball fields and a soccer field. 

2. GrimesPlex, a 50-acre synthetic turf multiuse sports complex at 7054 N.W. 114th St. The complex, expected to open in the fall, will include baseball, softball, soccer and football fields. The cost to develop the GrimesPlex is estimated at $20 million. The facility is expected to draw families from across the Midwest whose children are participating in sports tournaments. The economic impact of the facility in its initial year of operation is estimated at $11 million. 

3. Prairie Trail Sports Complex at 2250 S.W. Vintage Parkway in Ankeny. When completed, the indoor complex will include nearly 100,000 square feet of athletic space. The first phase of the complex, called the Fieldhouse, is completed. Demand for the space was so great that an addition is being added to the Fieldhouse. Construction began last fall on the Diamond, which will include baseball and softball facilities. A third building, called the Coliseum, will include space dedicated to wrestling, esports and about 37,000 square feet of turf for soccer, lacrosse and rugby.

4. Grand Experience, proposed on 226 acres along Grand Avenue between 60th and 88th streets west of Interstate Highway 35 in West Des Moines. The development would surround the MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex, which opened in fall 2021. The Grand Experience’s centerpiece would be a 220,000-square-foot facility that would include an indoor water park, family entertainment center, hotel and conference center. 

“We know from experience that recreational opportunities feed off each other, and that’s what we’re seeing in the Grand Avenue corridor,” said Clyde Evans, West Des Moines’ community and economic development director. “I’ve heard from hotel chains and others that are interested in developing something in that area.”

In its first year of operation, the RecPlex attracted an estimated 650,000 visitors including youth and adult athletes who participate in hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, softball and other sports, city officials said. The proposed water park, hotel and entertainment and conference centers are expected to attract 2 million visitors annually, backers said.   

The influx of visitors to the area creates opportunities for new service-oriented businesses. Grand Experience developers are planning a 60-acre parcel east of the RecPlex that includes restaurants, one or more brewpubs and other commercial space.

“I think what the last few years has taught us is that people are willing to pay for experiences,” Riley Hogan, senior vice president at CBRE’s Des Moines office and the project’s listing broker, said. “This is a perfect corridor for this experience to happen and to draw people from Omaha, Minnesota, South Dakota and so on. Now, with this development, West Des Moines [will] become the top destination for kids’ sports teams.”

Nationwide, cities are hustling to turn farm fields and other vacant land into havens for youth sports. In 2020, 54.1% of 6- to 17-year-olds participated in one or more sports, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Additionally, families in the U.S. spent between $30 billion and $40 billion on their children’s sport activities, according to a study released in fall 2022 by the nonprofit Aspen Institute, located in Washington, D.C. Families on average spent $883 in 2022 on one child’s primary sport, with $260 going toward travel, the study showed.

“Anywhere you have these developments that cater to youth sports, you have restaurants and hotels popping up,” said Todd Caruso, a senior managing director for retail at CBRE, located in Dallas. “These places are packed on the weekends.”

Other types of businesses also look to capitalize on the development of youth sports complexes.

One of the reasons Allen Stoye and others in the Bombers development group chose to build the golf entertainment venue along Merle Hay Road in Johnston was its close proximity to Ignit. The sports complex is expected to attract over 400,000 visitors annually, 100,000 of which will be from outside of Iowa.

“We’re excited that for 49 to 50 weekends a year, we’re going to have a captive audience,” Stoye said. “They aren’t going to hop in the car and drive 20 minutes to hit golf balls, play arcade games or get a bite to eat. They are going to walk or drive across the street and have those things.”

Construction of the Bombers development is expected to begin this spring on 35 acres at 5055 Merle Hay Road. The centerpiece is a 75,000-square-foot family entertainment center that is expected to include 36 climate-controlled golf hitting bays, arcade games, a bowling alley and Popstroke-style putting courses. Also planned is a hotel, fishing pond and kayak launch as well as restaurants and a brewpub.

Norwalk’s sports complex also is expected to attract up to 1 million people annually, Zajicek said. The complex is expected to be surrounded by entertainment venues, restaurants, retail and hotels. 

“It’s going to be a monster traffic generator,” Zajicek said. “We think that retailers who locate around the facilities will make as much in three to four months as they would in a normal-traffic-based area in an entire year.” 

While youth athletic complexes are important economic engines for communities, so is the development of recreation areas like trails and parks. When completed, Norwalk’s sports complex is expected to include more than 6 acres of parks and trails. The recreation center will also have spaces for activities for all of Norwalk’s residents. 

“This will widen our ability to do more things for the people in Norwalk,” Zajicek said. “Residents have been asking for something like this, and now we’re able to deliver it.”