By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph city officials are continuing to explore building a new indoor athletics facility designed for youth sports.
A site has been decided on near the Missouri Western campus, and the city has put out a proposal to select a developer for the project.
Interim City Manager Clint Thompson says the idea for the project came with several families having to leave St. Joseph to take their children to sporting events.
"And they always ask how come we couldn't have something similar like that in St. Joseph? And so as a result of that conversation it transpired into the city considering the availability of creating a youth sports facility," Thompson tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr.
Thompson says originally there were two sites in mind, the one at Missouri Western and another at the Sears location at East Hills Mall. that plan had called for the indoor sports facility to be at the Sears location
"However, the shift now has changed to having all of those options on one property as an events just from an economy of the scale," Thompson explain.
Thompson says the facility will be a joint partnership with Missouri Western
"In an effort to not only attract outside tourism to St. Joseph, but it would be an amenity that the university itself would be able to utilize in attracting additional enrollment potentially with the availability of this amenity on their campus," Thompson says. "But also, existing students would have an opportunity to utilize the facilities when they're not hosting events as well."
Thompson says the facility will focus on sports such as basketball, baseball, and soccer having no type of aquatic component at this time.