Johnson County, KY plans to build facility to attract tournament tourism business

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (WCHS) — Johnson County is trying to become a player in the regional tournament circuit. Plans are in the works to improve existing sports fields in order to make them tournament ready. Now that the lease agreements are all in place, the county is ready to move forward with the design phase of the project..

Soccer fields in Johnson County will soon get an upgrade so the county can host tournaments. Johnson County Fiscal Court has plans to build a new athletic facility, complete with things like a new soccer field and a walking track.

“We also decided to take a look at incorporating tennis courts because right now our community does not have a significant number of tennis courts available,” said Johnson County Judge-Executive Mark McKenzie.

The new facility will benefit the county by allowing them to host tournaments, meaning an economic impact for the area.

“Being in the hospitality industry we want heads and beds,” said John Howard, Guest Services Manager at the Ramada Inn in Paintsville.

He says more tournaments mean more business.

“We have tournaments around the area that are not always held in Paintsville, but we do get the overflow,” said Howard.

“Paintsville and Johnson County are geographically situated equally between Pikeville and Ashland, so regionally we can have tournaments here and we can go to Pikeville and they can host tournaments there,” said McKenzie.

The new facility also allows local people to take advantage of the area. McKenzie says although all the funding is in place, the cost of the project is still being determined.

For commercial business we have been a regional draw for years. We are a county with a little over 22,000 people, but we have a trade area more than 3 times that,” said McKenzie.

The goal is to start construction in the spring of next year.