Round-Up City Development Corp. proposes state-of-the-art sports complex for Pendleton

Hull during a private event Tuesday, Jan. 3, at the Pendleton Convention Center revealed RCDC received the results of a feasibility study to build the facility and placed a bid on land for its eventual construction.

Under the proposal, the Pendleton Regional Youth Sports Complex would be a state-of-the-art facility complete with turf fields for baseball, softball, soccer and football and capable of hosting local, regional and even national youth sports tournaments.

Hull said he and his team spent months vetting possible locations and meeting with landowners, lobbyists and local politicians to gauge interest in the project. After a long process, Hull and his team settled on a location off Airport Road west of Pendleton along Interstate 84.

“I really love this location because it borders Interstate 84,” Hull said. “If you’ve driven through towns that have these huge sports complexes and you see three football teams out there playing and six soccer teams and softball is being practiced, the lights are on. There’s nothing like it. We want that for our town.”

The Umatilla County Board of Commissioners in October gave RCDC $100,000 to buy property for the complex.

After garnering an initial round of support, Hull hired Westby Associates Inc. as feasibility consultants to poll Pendleton locals and gauge whether funding a project of such magnitude was feasible.

“Results were extremely favorable,” Westby CEO Mike Westby said. “Out of the 115 people we asked, we got 50% responded. The national average for these things is in the 30th percentile. To get 50% is one thing — it suggests that it’s a hot-button issue. Then we had 83% responding positively. When you’re looking at trend analysis, anything over 70% starts to tilt extremely positively.”

State Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, spoke about his commitment to pursuing state and federal dollars to develop the project, explaining his previously unannounced appointment to the Joint Committee On Ways and Means Subcommittee on Capital Construction will assist in the development, as this project would go through that committee.

“I really feel confident that we can have an impact on moving projects like this and other ones that we’re working on for Eastern Oregon,” Hansell said. “We’ll move this thing forward and it’ll be a privilege and an honor for me to be a part of that.”

Although the feasibility is done, Westby emphasized the project needs a market analysis next, as it will be a crucial part of securing funds in Salem. Hull added the construction would occur in two phases.

“Phase one will be based on some level of success with Sen. Hansell appropriating state and federal funds,” Hull said. “Phase one, our plan is to build at least the baseball and softball baseball fields, and at least three or four soccer fields. We’d love to get lighting in phase one if we have enough money to do that. Infrastructure is going to be an expensive part of this. Phase one really wants to have fields to play on.”

Phase two would complete the infrastructure and add additional lighting if needed, he said, and it is “earmarked to do a stadium-type baseball field.”

The plan is built with the future in mind, Hull said, with the baseball fields in a cloverleaf, and extra space left to construct more fields and infrastructure in the future.

“The health that will come to our town from having a facility like this, promoting youth sports, promoting families,” Hull said. “This is going to help draw families here. Families are going to love this project, and I think it makes Pendleton even more feasible and exciting to them.”