Double play: Two new sports venues (arena and complex) could change the game for Kalamazoo’s economy

KALAMAZOO, MI — The staff of Discover Kalamazoo hasn’t spent much time in the past trying to convince event organizers to host their sporting events and tournaments here. 

That’s because they had no place to put them, says Jane Ghosh, president and chief executive officer of Discover Kalamazoo.

But that is changing with the construction of a huge new, $49 million sports complex (not to be confused with the new downtown arena) targeted to attract regional and national youth basketball and volleyball tournaments, and provide a place for local teams and athletes to hold events.

Ground was broken on Friday, July 31, on the Kalamazoo Indoor Sports Facility, a 140,000-square-foot indoor structure that will include eight full-size basketball courts that can be converted into 16 volleyball courts, a 200-by-85-foot indoor turf field, team rooms, and a cafe with food and beverage seating. The turf field can be used for indoor soccer, flag football, and softball training. About 800 parking spaces will be available. 

“Sports tourism is already a big contributor to the Kalamazoo County economy, and in the future this facility alone is expected to generate 36,000 incremental hotel room nights a year,” says Ghosh. “That’s why Kalamazoo County hotels voted overwhelmingly to support this initiative through an incremental 4 percent assessment on hotel stays.”

The one-story facility, which is a project of the Kalamazoo County Event Center Assessment District Authority (KCECAD), is expected to attract thousands of additional hotel room stays per year after it is up and running by October of 2027. Brian Persky, director of business development for Discover Kalamazoo, says it will employ 50 to 60 full- and part-time workers when completed. But many more will be involved in its construction. Persky estimates it will support up to 600 area workers.

Clearwater, Fla.-based Sports Facilities Companies will be its day-to-day manager and operator. That firm markets itself as the nation’s leading resource for planning, developing and managing sports, fitness and event facilities. It manages about 100 facilities nationwide.

More than 200 area people gathered to praise the collaborative efforts of area municipalities, politicians, business leaders and building specialists that are involved in the project. The project sits on 20 acres of an unused, wooded site just north of the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels at 1247 Westgate Dr. (just off West Main Street). New roads are being created there, just east of U.S. 131 to connect the property to adjacent roads.

“Our job — basically, the reason we exist — is to bring in out-of-towners because when they come in, they spend money,” says Ghosh. “So we’re essentially an economic development organization.”

About half of its staff of 13 people is engaged in that goal. But when they have tried to entice organizations to plan events and conferences here, they have had little success because facilities here are limited. 

Despite having a solid record for hosting such things as national figure-skating competitions, national ice hockey events, and the USTA Boys’ 18 & 16 National Championship, Ghosh says Southwest Michigan has been missing out on attracting events planned by many of the 20 million people who live within a three-hour radius of Kalamazoo. 

“When we think of how are we going to grow? And what holds us back from hosting all the sports?” Ghosh says, “It is that we don’t have the right facilities.”

Now, she says, her team has something new to sell.

When Discover Kalamazoo’s Brad Beauregard meets with event organizers at trade shows, she says, “Up until now, he hasn’t even bothered to meet with people who host volleyball and basketball events because we knew we didn’t have the facilities to host those tournaments. Now he can meet with them.”

She says he had 60 meetings at the last trade show he went to in Las Vegas, “and I think half of them were about this facility.”

Oshtemo Township Supervisor Cheri Bell and Jill Bland, executive vice president of Economic Development for Southwest Michigan First, were among speakers who appreciated the cooperation of area organizations to bring the project together. It is being built on property located in the City of Kalamazoo and in Oshtemo Township. Most is in the City of Kalamazoo, on an oddly-shaped finger of land that juts to the west. It is otherwise surrounded on three sides by Oshtemo Township. Southwest Michigan First helped locate usable sites for development. 

“It’s bringing new people into the area,” says Bland, who is also the chairperson of KCECAD. “Another thing is we view this too as part of our Talent Retention/Talent Attraction (strategy). If we can get more people to come in and experience the community, when there’s a job opportunity, they can say, ‘You know, I was there. It’s a really interesting community.’ It can give them more reason to take a second look at that job that they might not have previously.”

Bell says, “This project represents an exciting opportunity for the Kalamazoo area to strengthen the connection between recreation, tourism, and local business. Youth sports bring together athletes, families, and coaches across the region, and when they come here for tournaments and events, they support our hotels, restaurants, and shops.”

The Kalamazoo County Event Center Assessment District Authority was formed in May of 2025 to support sports tourism efforts here and to shepherd a 4-percent room assessment tax on area hotel stays (of less than 30 days) to fund the project. The assessment only involves hotels with more than 35 rooms. Eighty-two percent of those hotel owners voted to approve the assessment, which is expected to generate about $45 million over 30 years.

How will this new facility work alongside the Kalamazoo Event Center, the $515 million, 453,000-square-foot  new home for Western Michigan University ice hockey, WMU basketball, Kalamazoo Wings ice hockey, concerts, and special events? It is under construction in downtown Kalamazoo and expected to open in 2027.

Ghosh says a feasibility study that supported the development of the Kalamazoo Event Center also found that the area has the potential to accommodate amateur sports. While nothing has been set on how the two projects may work together, Ghosh says, “Down the line, the tournaments that we’re going to be able to host here will give us the reputation to be able to host additional tournaments at the Event Center and vice versa.”

Discover Kalamazoo is working with Greenleaf Hospitality Group (which will manage the Kalamazoo Event Center) and WMU to bid on 17 NCAA events to be held downtown.

The concept for trying to attract more sports tourism arose about five years ago, Ghosh says. Local people started asking what they should do about four years ago. And they decided on the Indoor Sports Facility about two years ago.

Asked what tournaments Discover Kalamazoo would like to attract, Persky says, “We have talked to over 100 different groups that are interested in this facility.” 

While it will primarily accommodate youth basketball and volleyball events, he says, “We’ve talked to Futsal groups (five-a-side indoor soccer), wrestling, cheer, and dance. I think there’s something like 12 to 15 different sports categories that we’ve talked to.”

“I think the exciting thing is just how many different people it touches as we’ve gone through the years of planning and talking to people,” Persky says. “Everybody can connect with this in some way or another.”

What some others had to say:

Jen Strebs, Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners — “These are opportunities for kids to be engaged, off of screens, to be active in the real world, to build teamwork, resiliency, perseverance, (and) improve their physical health. There are tremendous benefits.”

Michigan Sen. Sean McCann, (D-Kalamazoo), and candidate for U.S. House of Representatives — “The Kalamazoo Indoor Sports Facility is definitely going to be an amazing addition to our community. It’s going to draw people from Southwest Michigan and beyond. It will be an asset to the region and another jewel in our community’s crown of attractions and all the things that offer a desirable quality of life in Kalamazoo and beyond.”

Corey Person, director and founder of United Pursuit Basketball, an elite youth sports and travel program — Saying he does not know if the area will produce the next LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or the next NFL superstar, “We don’t know. But what we do know is that every day of the week and every day of the month, there’s going to be thousands and thousands and thousands of kids that are going to walk through those doors and that are going to be learning so many life lessons. They’re going to be learning that maybe if they do put in the work, if they do put in the time, if they do the things they’re supposed to do … that those dreams can come true.”

Annamarie Boarman, the general manager of The Dome Sports Center in Schoolcraft — “I think this provides opportunities to all these youth athletes that they wouldn’t yet have. And it provides partnership and collaboration opportunities for facilities like ours that are smaller and couldn’t serve something like this.”