- November 18, 2024
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The Indian Trails Sports Complex has seen plenty of soccer balls and lacrosse balls, but broom sticks, quaffles and bludgers might soon make an appearance there, too.
The city is considering adding two more fields to the eight-field complex, in part so tournaments for sports like quidditch — a game based on the Harry Potter series, in which athletes play while straddling broomsticks — can be held in Palm Coast.
“It’s turned out to be quite a serious sport — big crowds —and they are coming to Palm Coast to take a look at our fields,” City Manager Jim Landon said at a City Council workshop April 29. “We’ve been discovered.”
But although the city gets regular calls from sports organizations interested in holding events at the complex, Landon said, some of them worry that it is too small for their needs.
“There’s hardly a week goes by that we don’t have another phone call, someone taking a look at us for another conversation about, ‘Well, I used to be down in West Palm Beach for my tournament, but I want to move it to Palm Coast,’” he said. But, he said, “We continue to hear, ‘I don’t know if you have enough fields.’”
Adding two more fields would cost about $200,000 in materials, and the money is already budgeted. Landon said the additional fields could bring in much more money when visitors come to Palm Coast and spend money at local businesses and hotels.
“Every time they come here, our cash register rings, through sales tax,” he said.
The city doesn’t charge organizations rental fees for the use of the fields, and Landon advised against adding them.
“I think if we started charging even a small fee, it would turn them the other direction,” he said.
The Sports Complex was expanded just a few years ago, in 2011 — when they city doubled its number of fields, from four to eight — and the economic impact was clear, Palm Coast Parks and Recreation Director Luanne Santangelo said.
Sports visitors spent about $2 million in Palm Coast in 2012, and $3 million in 2013.
This year, she said, the city has already scheduled 24 tournaments. There were 14 sports tournaments there last year, and 10 in 2012.
The Palm Coast City Council will vote on the proposed Indian Trails Sports Complex expansion at its business meeting May 6.
If the project is approved, Palm Coast’s public works crew would be expected to start construction in June in order to finish in time for October tournaments.
