Nov. 29—City officials have set a May deadline to decide whether to seek an August 2025 bond issue to develop a large-scale youth sports complex in St. Joseph.
Key discussions between city leaders, consultants and Missouri Western State University are expected to intensify in early 2025 on the project, with council members poised to approve a $129,500 contract on Dec. 9 with project developer/consultant Sports Facilities Development to pave way for preliminary planning and analysis.
The city intends to decide on a potential August bond issue by May 27 after gathering all the necessary information through preliminary planning. Discussions will cover the design and management of the facility along with cost projections, anticipated annual revenue and long-term sustainability, among many other aspects.
"The first five months of the project itself would be working towards designing what a project would look like to fit the needs of our community, how it would best serve as far as the total costs associated with the project," Interim City Manager Clint Thompson said. "One thing that the city and the council will want to have a comfort level by that May deadline is a complete understanding of what the projected revenue will be from the property."
The city could pursue a general obligation bond to finance the construction of the proposed complex, a facility now tentatively eyed for a 70-acre plot of land on the northern portion of the Missouri Western campus. General obligation bonds are backed by a government's pledge to use general and tax revenues to repay bondholders. In most cases, the bonds are repaid over 20 years, though some may have terms of five, seven or 10 years.
A common tool used by governments to fund major infrastructure projects like bridges, parks and public buildings, these bonds differ from other financing tools like revenue bonds, which are attached to revenue generated from the project itself or other income sources.
"When you're counting on the issuance of a general obligation bond, you have the support of the taxpayer to help fund the project. However, the goal of the city is to minimize that exposure to the residents," Thompson said. "If there's additional revenue that we can generate from adjacent development, that'll be considered to help offset that total cost and then the actual revenue generated from the project itself."
Developer SFD, a Florida-based company with $15 billion in projects across 2,500 cities, was hired to do the project's initial feasibility study and became a leading candidate to continue the next phase of preliminary development.
SFD has helped develop and manage indoor and outdoor facilities like the AdventHealth Sports Park in Shawnee, Kansas, and the Cooper Sports Complex in Springfield, Missouri.
"They had a familiarity with St. Joseph and they had an understanding of what the city and the community were looking for," Thompson said. "They have partnered with other projects that actually had a city-university partnership. Having a company that's worked both sides of the table, that's one of the advantages."
SFD's feasibility study was conducted when the city was still contemplating split locations for the indoor and outdoor facilities at the university and East Hills Shopping Center. City leaders elected to pursue the complex at one location at Missouri Western, which received the highest weighted score among potential locations listed in the study (7.9), including the mall (7.4), riverfront (6.2) and land south of Beck Road (7.1).
The feasibility study estimated the complex could cost between $84 million and $105 million, a projection that will be revised with a location now tentatively agreed on and preliminary development on the horizon.
Missouri Western leaders signaled their willingness to listen and partner with the city as they develop a concept that makes sense for the community and university.
"The city will put, if you will, a work team together to begin looking at this and we'll have representatives on that work team," said Tama Wagner, chief assistant for strategic initiatives with Missouri Western. "What we'll do is just follow along with the process and determine if this makes sense for us as a university. Then we'll continue to move forward."
Wagner said the university's decision to partner with the city doesn't rule out the possibility of other projects occurring. As the process unfolds over the coming months, she sees community engagement and discussion as vital to presenting a successful plan that attracts widespread community support from voters.
"As the university, our first thought is how does this help our students? How does this help our university? But then, of course, on a bigger view, how does it benefit the community?" Wagner said. "What is this going to look like? What role do we play in it? The city is here and they're asking us to take a look and we're very willing to do that."
Complex aims to be a tournament and event destination
St. Joseph is eyeing a dual indoor and outdoor complex capable of hosting dozens of tournaments and events while boosting community sports growth through new programs and state-of-the-art facilities.
New facilities would also fill a need for the university by providing opportunities to host additional events. Early plans call for a variety of courts for volleyball and basketball, fields for baseball and softball and a host of additional amenities for fitness and training.
"There's a lot of interest in St. Joe residents because of the demand for youth sports and the fact that they travel outside the area because there's not the facilities to host those types of events," Thompson said. "We know we're wanting a baseball field component and there has to be, you know, a certain number of fields to attract the tournaments."
The complex could host anywhere from 40 to 60 events annually and would be managed by SFD or another selected sports facility management company if ultimately approved by voters.
