Grand Park in Westfield was visited more often last year than Lucas Oil Stadium, ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando and Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
The sports campus saw more than 5.5 million visits in 2023, according to data from a city presentation. Now Westfield plans to further leverage Grand Park as a tourism asset to attract development.
Mayor Scott Willis and the city’s director of economic development Jenell Fairman have big ideas for what could be built in the areas surrounding Grand Park, including mixed-use buildings with retail and housing, gathering spaces, a canal and boardwalk with water sports and even an indoor skiing facility.
The city partnered with Hamilton County Tourism, a real estate consulting firm and an urban design company, to come up with an initial plan to identify the types of businesses and development Grand Park can attract.
The idea behind the plans is to build the economy and community in Westfield, Fairman said at a July city council meeting. And she added there’s no reason Grand Park shouldn’t attract unique and exciting development.
"This is Indiana's biggest tourism asset,” she said.
Fairman compared Grand Park to Lucas Oil Stadium, which had 3.2 million visits in 2023 and was the 63rd most visited stadium, arena, convention center or sports complex in the country. Grand Park ranked 16th on that list, in front of all other venues in Indiana last year.
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Fairman conceded that many of Grand Park's visits come from locals, who return to the venue many times per year for youth sports events, but said the sports campus had 1.3 million unique visitors in 2023.
She also pointed to a statistic that showed nearly 50% of all visitors to Grand Park from 2017 through 2023 traveled from homes more than 100 miles away.
“If we want to continue to move the park forward, if we want to attract the FIFAs of the world, we have to do a better job about what we are creating around this park,” Willis said. "The first time I saw the designs, I got goosebumps. It's what we've been talking about in Westfield for a decade and finally we have a vision for it."
Westfield envisions waterfront development, winter sports near Grand Park
The city and its partners identified the area south of 186th Street and centered by Grand Park Boulevard as a priority site for attracting development.
Plans, for what the development could look like, call for the extension of a nearby lake and the creation of a canal.
"The idea with this would be to create a very impactful waterfront property where people could use paddleboards and kayaks,” Fairman said. “This is something that we really are lacking in Hamilton County, especially those of us further away from the White River.”
The vision includes a specialty retail/entertainment space that Fairman said she hopes could be a Dave and Buster’s or Pinheads type of business. It also includes spots for high-end restaurants, retail and apartments along a boardwalk, parking garages and office space.
Karen Radcliff, vice president and chief strategy officer with Hamilton County Tourism, added that more development in the Grand Park area is inevitable, so it's best to plan.
“To stay competitive with some of our competing destinations, you really have to have entertainment districts,” Radcliff said.
Both Fairman and Willis said there is a need for the development of a winter sports attraction in the early phase of buildout near the sports campus.
"We have a lot of baseball diamonds, a lot of baseball tournaments driving traffic to the area but then we have less happening in the winter months,” Fairman said.
A facility with ice rinks or indoor skiing was identified by the city and its partners as a development that could attract visitors throughout the year. Without visitors coming to the Grand Park area in the winter months, it's difficult to attract additional hotels, restaurants and other businesses, Willis said.
“We are not going to get anything more than fast food restaurants if we don't start looking at Grand Park as a 365-day destination,” he said. “We are going to have to figure out this winter piece to it.”
What are the next steps in bringing development to the Grand Park area?
The city is looking for opportunities to work with a developer to further plan out the site south of 186th Street, and has already been in touch with landowners and other stakeholders.
Westfield has also started to envision a plan for the area directly north, between 186th Street and the Grand Park Events Center. This plan includes sports practice facilities, mixed-use buildings with retail and housing and gathering places for the community. This could look similar to Georgia Street in Indianapolis during special events, such as the NBA All-Star Game and the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials.
The city is working on a master plan for all the undeveloped areas surrounding Grand Park. This plan is expected to be completed and adopted by the city council by early 2025. By putting a vision for the Grand Park area out there, Willis said it signals to developers that the city is ready to work with them.
“Once the master plan is out there developers and builders will start reaching out to work on the projects and it starts the ball rolling,” Willis said. “We are open to doing business with companies across the country, but this is what we want, and this is what we'll accept in these parcels of land."
Once the Grand Park master plan is in place, properties will already be zoned and the approval process for development will be quicker than normal in those areas.
"It's starting to spark interest and we are telling people we are open for business,” Willis said. “We want to do something unique and different here and it's going to take some time, but I think it's coming if we continue to play our cards right.”
Contact Jake Allen at jake.allen@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jake_Allen19.
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