The ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb did not emerge from a cornfield Tuesday afternoon at Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Pointe. But Springfield’s version of Field of Dreams became another step closer to reality when Gov. J.B. Pritzker came to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the $70 million development just off MacArthur Boulevard.
A project long-whispered about that endured much “we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see-it” eye-rolling from the locals, Pritzker hailed the multi-faceted, mammoth facility with one word – “Wow!” – and said it “solidifies Springfield, and our state, as a destination for teams all across the country, not to mention the region” in the multi-billion-dollar youth sports industry.
“It’s good for families, it’s good for the community, it’s good for generating economic growth but, most of all, it is great for the kids that get to compete and work together and enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun,” Pritzker said. “The community has been working on this for, frankly, two decades. But it didn’t really get off the ground until about 2019.”
Pritzker said all the credit for Scheels Sports Park becoming a reality goes to others, but added, “Look, I’ll take a little bit of credit.”
“I think we created both the environment and the opportunity to support this kind of industry across the state,” Pritzker said. “I think that gives impetus to people. I think when people get some confidence that the state is on their side, that we’re not gonna pull the rug out from under folks who are trying to invest in the state, I think that encourages people to come and build things.”
Kevin Costner, who built the fictional field in the movie, wasn’t there today, either. But Steve Luker, whose Legacy Pointe Development company is the primary landowner and developer, noted that while youth sporting events have been held weekly since October, all park facilities should be fully open by late summer or early fall.
“There’s so much work that still has to be done, and a lot of stuff that might happen to get a lot more people coming,” Luker told Illinois Times. “But the success we’ve already had has been (strong). I talked with my (Legacy Pointe) partner, Dirk (McCormick), already today, and he said there have been 150,000 people that have come through the doors since they opened in October.”
A 197,000-square-foot inflatable dome makes the facility easy to spot from highway intersections, and when other tenants such as restaurants, hotels and other retail businesses sign leases around the adjacent property, the hope and expectation is it will attract many more people than just those who want to participate in and watch youth sports. Yet, the bread and butter of the park will be the potentially hundreds of youth teams and parents that travel to Springfield and spend weekends using the park for tournaments, all-star games, camps and other athletic events. Already, there are multiple outdoor fields to accommodate various sports, along with the mammoth indoor dome featuring multiple courts for action.
“We’re a tourist community, and now, for the first time, we’re a sports tourist community, and that’s huge,” Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher said. “No one can take Lincoln from us, and now no one can take this dome from us.”
Plans for the park remained stagnant for many years, but things began to accelerate after it became more of a partnership between developers and the city and state, including a 2% allocation of the city’s 8% hotel-motel tax and other tax incentives for the 276 acres of land, much of which is still available for tenancy.
Whether Luker and McCormick can sell all the available land to prospective businesses remains something of a parlor guessing game, and McCormick rubbed three fingers together in the universal sign of money when addressing the crowd on hand about what it will take to sell it out. But the vibes, on this day at least, were positive.
Part of the park will also include a large common area that Luker said will host entertainment acts and other things “we’re still dreaming about.”
Luker took a second to ponder the reality in front of him, which used to be only just that – a dream.
“There were once just a couple of tractors here and nothing else,” Luker said. “Now, this.”
If you find it, they will come