Athletes in the Fox Valley can look forward to a new, premier indoor sports facility thanks to a gift of land from the Town of Grand Chute.
The town approved a gift of about 20 acres of land to the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau to build a sports facility scheduled to open in the fall of 2019. The land is worth about $1 million.
The Fox Cities Sports Facility will be funded through hotel room tax. It will be located near the intersection of McCarthy Road and County Road GV.
“From an economic development perspective, this gift of land makes sense for the Town of Grand Chute,” said Robert Buckingham, Grand Chute community development director, in a press release. “A sports facility like this needs to be in Grand Chute, where the highest concentration of hotels, retail and restaurant establishments are located. The McCarthy Road site provides close access to the interstate and proximity to the Fox River Mall/hotel corridor. Transforming the land into a tourist destination is ideal for what we want to accomplish in the coming years.”
A main goal of the facility is to attract teams from outside the Fox Cities to play in tournaments or participate in events.
It will feature a combination of ice and hard-court surfaces.
According to a study commissioned by the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, the facility will bring about $4.8 million in economic impact to the area in its first year.
“We are extremely thankful to the Town of Grand Chute for showing this level of support for an indoor sports facility,” Pam Seidl, executive director of the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, said in a press release. “Grand Chute, along with the other nine municipalities that have agreed to provide hotel room tax for facility development, recognizes the impact this venue will have to draw thousands of tourists to our region.”
The facility will be owned by Fox Cities Sports Development, Inc., a part of the Fox Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau.
