Waterloo is considering the development of a youth sports complex as a solution to one of its riverfront brownfield sites. The city has struggled with how to incorporate industrial polluted land into its future development plans.
One site, near Waterloo’s John Deere Museum and riverfront, has been vacant nearly 20 years and could be ideal for the proposed sports complex. Jim Miller is on the Waterloo Development Corporation’s Board of Directors and he estimates the facility could fill a regional need.
“This was an area where we knew people were leaving town every weekend to go to these facilities around the Midwest,” Miller says, “and we didn’t have anything comparable to keep our families in the community as well as bringing in others.”
A feasibility study conducted last summer indicated that when hosting regional tournaments, the complex could bring in around a million dollars to the city per event. Miller says nothing is set in stone yet, but feedback from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. “There’s been a lot of phone calls that I’ve received, asking, ‘Can we do this in there,’ ‘Can we have gymnastics?’ It’s been very positive, the feedback,” Miller says. “There’s potentially an option that could exist here in the Cedar Valley for a lot of different events to take place.”
Sitework is expected to begin in the coming weeks, thanks to a one-point-five-million-dollar reimbursement through the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
(By Grant Winterer, Iowa Public Radio)