Capital Sports Center study released

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – A draft of an executive summary was proposed at the Capital Sports Complex Development Authority meeting Tuesday night. The report shows how much money the facility is expected to make in the first five years and what designers think is best for the facility.

“That will be the document that will guide the final design that will guise the what goes in it and then also how we operate the building moving forward,” Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin’s Chief of Staff Matthew Sutton said. “We laid out the vision of having a place where we can host large sporting events, having a place where our local kids can practice, having downtown recreational area that people can come and see and obviously generate revenue for our city. And they came back and said this is what you need to do.”

The summary said that the first phase of the project should focus on sport courts, exercise facilities, concessions, and a family entertainment center that are all said to bring in the most money.

“Having the most versatile space that we need because if you have basketball courts, you can put wrestling mats down and host wrestling tournaments there. You can bring in outdoor and sort of non-permanent pickleball courts and host tournaments facilities, as well, so having those is really going to be able to generate the revenue moving forward,” Sutton said.

But that money will take time to come in

“What the report basically tells us it will take two and a half, three million dollars to operate the facility and then we start to generate those revenues at the end of the third year and the fourth year we start making money,” Sutton said.

The draft will be available at Kanawha.us, and the public can submit comments to info@kanawha.us until June 30.

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