Visitors to the new Libertyville Sports Complex can climb a mountain, play soccer on two indoor fields, drive golf balls on a range or miniature course, work out on two floors of a fitness center or crank up video games.
The $25 million village-financed center also has nine basketball courts, four restaurants, indoor and outdoor batting cages and a golf pro shop.
And it all can be converted into a warehouse and sold to a private business if it doesn’t make enough money to pay off the bonds that built it, said Randy Reopelle, director of the Parks and Recreation Department.
But village officials don’t believe that will be necessary.
“We’ve really tried to reach every demographic here,” said Stephanie Witkiewicz, the department’s marketing coordinator.
The complex, which opened this month, already has more than 350 annual memberships, and more than 3,000 people visited during an open house June 8.
The complex, said Lisa Matthews of Libertyville, “is just unbelievable….If I was a kid, I couldn’t begin to understand it all.”
Matthews and her husband, Sean, were among those who attended the open house. She said the complex is a place where her entire family–including a 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son–can “work and play together,” especially because traffic near their home makes it difficult for the children to be outside safely.
That is exactly what village officials had in mind when they went into debt to build the complex, financed with bonds to be paid for by revenue generated by the center.
Witkiewicz said the village developed the center after hearing from residents in a survey in 1998 that they wanted places to play soccer and work out. The complex, built on 48 acres at U.S. Highway 45 and Peterson Road, is one of a number of such facilities publicly financed in the suburbs.
Not everyone is happy with Libertyville’s new addition. Some private club owners said they believe such facilities create unfair competition.
“There has been a controversy for the past 10 years, with the entry of non-profit [centers] into the fitness marketplace,” said Steve Wild, who owns Libertyville Tennis & Fitness and two other tennis clubs in Racine, Wis. “It’s certainly not going to help any. We’re in a situation of oversupply.”
Sensitive to that argument, Libertyville officials opted not to have saunas or hot tubs as offered by other centers.
A one-year membership to the Libertyville complex is about $500. A year’s membership at a private fitness club can cost about $700, although membership fees vary widely.
During public hearings on the project, no business owners expressed concerns about competition, Reopelle said.
The center’s indoor soccer fields and basketball courts could attract people from across the nation for special events, said Geoff Oman, the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s director of sports marketing.
The two regulation indoor soccer fields inside the sports center are already the most popular features, Oman said. County residents and sports organizations have expressed great interest about playing there.
“There are never enough indoor soccer fields,” he said.
A mountain for rock climbers to use for conditioning is the centerpiece in the sports center building. The 28-foot-tall rock has 15 paths to climb and a cave in the middle.
“This mountain is like climbing outdoors,” Witkiewicz said. “Most facilities just have a wall.”
The building also has three restaurants, the fitness center, basketball courts and room for indoor hockey and other activities.
The golf building includes a nine-hole contoured driving range made to look like a golf course. It also contains an Italian restaurant.
The family entertainment building includes video arcades.
“We want this to be a destination,” Witkiewicz said.
