Plans for ambitious multimillion-dollar sports complex take shape

The scope for the activity center – on nearly 200 acres south of the parking area for Badger Mountain’s Westgate Trailhead off Dallas Road – is enormous.

It includes eight soccer fields, six baseball fields, four softball fields, a fieldhouse for basketball, pickleball and volleyball, along with an outdoor amphitheater, hotel, RV park and food truck plaza.

Developers put the price tag somewhere between $100 million and $130 million for a project that’s just starting to get traction.

More fields needed

Though the project is just becoming public now, it’s been in the works for four-and-a-half years, said Matt Henderson, a partner with the Activity Center Development Company, or ACDC, the outfit developing the project.

The YMCA of the Greater Tri-Cities board member said he saw the need for such a sports facility during his frequent travels with his own kids for soccer games.

Local soccer teams often have difficulties finding space to play and have to rely on school district property, where their reservations can easily be bumped, Henderson said.

Everyone Henderson talked to agreed that the idea of an athletic complex was a good one, including his friend J. Trinidad Garibay, partner and CEO of Pasco-based Elite Construction and Development, who had had the same idea himself.

That conversation, two-and-a-half years ago, was when things began to happen.

While others might have left the idea of a huge athletic complex to developers, Henderson, who works in insurance, said that with so many people agreeing there was a need, it was important to him to make it happen.

Henderson and Garibay began meeting weekly to plan the endeavor, looking for open land with good access.

They inquired about a certain piece of property, and the landowner, Frank Tiegs LLC, said that it had a better parcel in the Badger South area.

Frank Tiegs LLC joined ACDC along with Henderson and Garibay, as well as Joel Morgan and Mike Monroe. Morgan was an assistant athletic director at Gonzaga University with a focus on facilities and event management, and Monroe was at one time the chief financial officer of the Seattle Storm women’s basketball team.

Close to the Queensgate shopping area, a developing neighborhood and wine tourism, they agreed the property would be a great location.

With land selected, ACDC began the design process with Spokane-based ALSC Architects. The group identified what they liked and didn’t like from similar projects across the country and from their own experience traveling to athletic facilities with kids.

The proposed activity center will include bungalows, shown above, a hotel, and RV spaces to house visitors and economically fuel the project.

| Courtesy Activity Center Development Company

Vision takes shape

A bold, ambitious project began to take shape that is set to include eight FIFA-sized soccer fields that can support soccer, football, lacrosse and more.

Plans also call for six baseball fields that can all be converted to softball fields, in addition to four softball fields.

A 150,000-square-foot field house would accommodate basketball, volleyball and pickleball, with the flexibility to convert to a convention space.

An outdoor amphitheater is also planned to expand entertainment and activity options.

Henderson said that the complex will provide ample parking, laid out in strategic locations, for 3,000 cars.

The various sports fields won’t be arranged in a grid, Henderson said, but rather separated from each other.

The naturally sloped topography will help with that, enabling a terraced layout and the possibility of using slopes for seating, like with the outdoor amphitheater.

‘Every activity’

The “idea is to support every sport, every activity at this facility,” Henderson said.

While the athletic complex is the primary driver for the project, developers also aim to create a facility with a campus-like atmosphere, so visitors won’t need to travel far for anything they need.

A hotel with 120 rooms is envisioned, along with a series of bungalows, each with their own parking spaces, and a 60-space RV park.

They envision a building for wineries, a restaurant, or a sports bar, and there’s also room for a 20-space food truck court.

The accommodations will provide revenue for the complex, Henderson said. The amount the developers invest in creating the activity center won’t be covered by fees for field rental, but hotel stays will help make the project economically viable.

Henderson said the goal is to fund as much of the project with private investment as possible, though the group will look into possible public-private partnerships.

The activity center is also anticipated to have a large economic impact: about $1.7 million every weekend it’s full by a conservative estimate, Henderson said.

The Activity Center Development Company hopes to make its proposed sporting complex home not just to athletes, but also a variety of other events and activities.

| Courtesy Activity Center Development Company

Path to development

Plans for the athletic and community campus took a step forward at a recent Richland City Council meeting.

Councilmembers unanimously voted in November to add two parcels of land to the city’s Urban Growth Area (UGA), including the 190 acres set aside for the athletic complex.

The land is a portion of a more than 700-acre parcel owned by Frank Tiegs LLC.

Adding the Benton County land to the Urban Growth Area means that it can eventually be annexed into Richland, Henderson said.

The land is in a small pocket between Richland land to both the north and south, and Henderson said the city already brings utility services to the residential areas south of the proposed development.

Once the city updates its comprehensive plan, it will be up to Benton County to OK the changes to the UGA, then the state. Richland officials said it will likely be late 2026, when the county approves the plan.

In the meantime, ACDC plans to begin permitting with Benton County in hopes of switching to Richland’s permitting once the land is annexed. Henderson said the group didn’t want to wait two years for the project to start.

Instead, the developers hope to break ground as soon as the summer of 2026 and be operational a year after that.

While the project will come too late for his own kids to use it, Henderson said that isn’t the point of the center.

ACDC is working concurrently on several different aspects of the project to get it up and running as soon as possible. Henderson said that the project has several interested investors, and ACDC is currently working to formalize its investment opportunity structure so it can raise money and complete the design process.

Once that’s done, the project will be able to move on to the permitting phases.

The developers also are interviewing several different management companies to handle field and building rentals.