Overland Park goes 'big league' with new soccer complex

Overland Park enters the big leagues of youth soccer this weekend.

With the grand opening of the $36 million Overland Park Soccer Complex, the city becomes a major destination for national and international tournaments and events.

Well before the official 6:30 p.m. opening ceremonies on Saturday, the complex had become a significant player in the bidding for top soccer events. The calendar of open dates is full this year and nearly booked solid for 2010.

The opening of the complex at 135th Street and Switzer Road is being greeted with considerable enthusiasm and praise in the local soccer community, the community at large, and in soccer circles elsewhere.

Alan Blinzler, who as president of Olathe-based Kansas Youth Soccer has visited almost all of the sport’s best complexes nationwide, ranks this one at the top.

“In terms of the quality of the fields and the amenities, it probably is the best one in the country,” Blinzler said.

The close proximity of the complex to restaurants, hotels, hiking trails, the Overland Park Convention Center and the Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead make it particularly unique and appealing, he said.

The complex features three permanent concession stands, digital scoreboards, wireless Internet and, most importantly, 12 lighted fields covered with 1.2 million square feet of synthetic turf that will allow considerably greater use than existing unlit grass fields.

“It gives a year-round venue suitable in all weather that we didn’t have before. That means we can bring in high-level tournaments that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise,” said Blinzler, whose 36,000-member group is the official sanctioning body of youth soccer events in the state.

All of those tournaments mean thousands of visitors and an expected boost to the local economy.

City taxpayers can enjoy the benefits of the complex without feeling the cost of it, because the facility is financed through a visitor tax charged on hotel patrons.

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Take a walking tour of the Overland Park Soccer Complex with Mike LaPlante

“It is perfect timing in this slow economy to be opening a thing like this, when retail sales and hotel occupancy rates and restaurant revenues all are down. It brings new people into the community to spend money in those places,” Gerlach said.

Mike Laplante, manager of soccer park operations, said it is estimated that visitors to soccer park events will fill 15,000 hotel rooms this year and about 150,000 in 2010.

Jerry Cook, president of the Overland Park Convention and Visitors Bureau, said business travelers long have kept weekday occupancy rates high, but the complex will help eliminate many of the vacancies that have persisted on weekends.

“It benefits the community because about $2 million to $3 million will flow into Overland Park in terms of the hotel rooms used, the restaurants and people buying,” Blinzler said.

While adult soccer leagues will use the fields as well, it is young players and organizations that will gain the most from the complex and provide the most benefit to the area economically.

Gerlach said it has been estimated that the upcoming one-week national youth soccer tournament alone will help fill almost 6,000 hotel rooms and pump $1 million to $2 million into the local economy.

The new complex is seen as a badly needed addition for youth soccer organizations that long have scrambled to find enough fields to meet their needs.

“The No. 1 priority always is to find enough open dates. We’ve become masters of dividing up the field space to use every square inch possible,” said Peter Vermes, Blue Valley Soccer Club executive director. “A facility like this with lights and turf allows kids to train later and avoid being canceled because of rain.”

Shane Hackett, executive director of the Heartland Soccer Association, agreed that the complex and its lighted turf fields give considerably greater opportunity to accommodate needs.

It also means that Heartland, which includes about 30,000 players ages 8 through 19, can host more events. While it will continue to use the 18-field soccer complex at Heritage Park in Olathe, he said the new park makes the area significantly more attractive.

“We will be able to pull teams from all around the nation and internationally as well,” Hackett said.

Next year, Heartland is expanding from four league tournaments to six. It also will be hosting three large USSSA competitions, including that group’s national championships as well as its Kansas and Missouri state championships.

The new soccer park was no small selling point when efforts were being made to bring those USSSA events here, Hackett said.

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