Draw A Crowd
Tournament facilities mean big business in Chattanooga
By Larry Zehnder
Photos: Barge Design Solutions
Parks and recreation projects add value to a community’s quality of life and make the area more attractive to new business and industry. Constructing top-notch, multi-purpose athletic facilities that can attract large tournaments also puts dollars back into the community in the form of full hotel rooms and restaurant seats. Viewed as a first-class sports venue, the state of Tennessee is home to a number of high-quality, tournament-level facilities. Although often-overlooked contributors to economic growth and stability, tournaments and other sporting events draw visitors to town, resulting in significant boosts in sales for area businesses and in tax revenue for local governments.
Chattanooga’s Hamilton County had $1.2 billion in domestic-travel expenditures in 2019, which accounted for 5.5 percent of the state total and generated $226.9 million in payroll income and 9,100 jobs within the county.
A Return To The Big Leagues
Chattanooga’s Summit of Softball complex was one of the first significant tournament facilities. It is owned by the city and maintained by the recreation maintenance staff. It was built in 2009 on 82 city-owned acres at a cost of about $12 million. The complex includes eight laser-graded adult softball fields that accommodate fast- and slow-pitch softball and baseball. Local adult leagues, recreational play, youth softball, as well as state and regional softball associations and teams, enjoy the benefits of Summit.
The purpose of the facility was to return Chattanooga to the big leagues of tournament play and to bring revenue to the city. This succeeded on both fronts initially and has since been a major factor in the city’s continuous attraction to visitors and new businesses in 2020. The Summit of Softball facility began this transformation when its first event—the National Softball Association’s 2009 Eastern World Series—drew 232 teams and an estimated $3.6 million in visitor spending, as reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The New York Times quoted Ron Littlefield, Mayor of Chattanooga at the time, as saying that income from sales and hotel taxes was “a real payback.”
The Summit complex was also host to the 2013 Amateur Softball Association 12-and-under girl’s fast-pitch national tournament after a rigorous bidding process involving nine cities. The event injected another estimated $2 million into the region’s economy.
In the period shortly after new facilities were built, the cumulative economic impact was nothing short of remarkable. The city reported an estimated $40.5 million in revenue, derived from tournaments between 2009 and 2013. The quality facilities helped the city grow the number of tournaments hosted from 38 in 2009 to a record 62 tournaments in 2010, and it keeps increasing. The city’s recreation officials report revenue from Summit’s 58 tournaments in 2013, including four national softball tournaments, at $10 million.
From 2017 to 2019, according to Tim Morgan with the Chattanooga Tourism Company (CTC), sports programs hosted approximately 92 sporting events per year with 31 different sports bringing 147,869 out-of-town attendees, generating $58,947,800 in estimated economic benefit to the county.
In 2020, COVID-19 cost the community 66 sporting events across multiple categories with a potential economic effect of $77 million, according to the CTC. Between 2023 and 2026, Chattanooga will host six NCAA championships for soccer, softball, and tennis; these events are estimated to deliver $6 million to $7 million. Softball in Division II alone will produce an economic impact of $1.2 million each year for its 3-year duration.
The Details
As with many of the newer athletic facilities, high-tech capabilities on and off the field, hospitality areas, and extra details cater to the needs and comfort of players, spectators, coaches, and families, making a visit to the Summit complex “a complete and satisfying leisure experience,” according to Greta Hayes, the city’s Director of Recreation. The facility has an environmentally conscious design with natural settings and pleasing landscapes. Each of its three tiers has color-coordinated shade structures, flowers, and trash cans. Each area has umpires’ quarters, energy-efficient lighting that minimizes light pollution into the night sky, its own tarp, and a digital scoreboard. The finished complex also has custom site furnishings, such as entry signage, entry arches, railings, seat walls, shade structures, and specialty paving in pedestrian areas.
“It can be used for everything from neighborhood association meetings to birthday parties,” said Hayes. “The facility is more than just a softball complex. There’s a walking trail that’s well-lit. There’s a picnic pavilion. It’s multi-purpose.”
The site chosen was a former borrow pit for soil for the adjacent closed landfill, which presented many design challenges. A prominent characteristic was the 40 feet of grade change across the site. This dictated the design approach that formed the fields into three different terraces, with the upper terrace providing a picturesque view of the entire complex.
Another challenge Barge Design Solution faced was a large petroleum pipeline traversing the site. Construction and grading were limited within the pipeline easement. The design firm solved the problem by locating two fields on either side of the pipeline and using the raised pipeline easement to create a grass berm between the fields for spectator seating.
Making Facilities Attractive
The city was able to build these new facilities because of the support from newly elected public officials in 2006, including the mayor and city council members, and the efforts of the (CTC) Sports and Events Committee. Both before and after building the facilities, the parks and recreation department took the following steps:
Encouraged and promoted tournament competition by establishing policies and procedures to attract competitive organizations.
Instituted a system to record the number of participants, where they traveled from, and how long they stayed in the community.
Conducted surveys with participants and tournament organizers to identify the economic impact of the tournament and possible improvements for future events.
Working with city or county tourism specialists to promote the reason why a location is desirable to potential tournament organizers is very important. Another factor that most elected officials may value is that investing in facilities that provide a positive economic impact also may improve facilities for constituent residents and the entire community.
If you would like assistance or more information on improving your tournament facilities, feel free to contact me. See you at the ballpark!
Larry Zehnder, CPRP, is a consulting Parks and Recreation Planner for Barge Design Solutions in Chattanooga Tenn. He has held positions that include Administrator of the city of Chattanooga’s Parks, Recreation, Arts and Culture Department, National Recreation and Park Association Southeast Region Executive Director, and Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Norfolk, Va., and for the city of Charleston, S.C. He was the first Director of the Athens, Tenn., Parks and Recreation Department. Reach him at Larry.Zehnder@bargedesign.com.