WESTFIELD, Ind. – Indoor skiing, a canal, an entertainment district – those are all some of the ideas floated for the future of Grand Park in Westfield.
It’s one of the busiest venues in the country among stadiums, arenas, convention centers and sports complexes. Placer.ai shows it’s busier than the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando and Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX.
“Last year was 5.5 million visitors at the park,” said Mayor Scott Willis, R-Westfield.
But a majority of those folks are here on bright, sunny days, not during cold Indiana winters.
”Right now Grand Park is very busy six, seven months out of the year,” Willis said. “The other four or five months there is hardly anybody here, and that’s just the result of the weather in Indiana.”
Even when people are at Grand Park, Hamilton County and Westfield struggle to keep all the visitors in their hotels.
”The county as a whole doesn’t have enough hotels to accommodate what Grand Park brings in,” Willis said. “The only way we’re going to be able to bring in more hotels is to create a more consistent usage of that hotel.”
Willis and Jenell Fairman, the Westfield economic development director, presented a vision to the City Council this month. Outlining potential plans to turn Grand Park into a tourist destination with year round appeal.
Renderings in the presentation show an entertainment district just south of Grand Park. Shopping, restaurants, apartments, hotels, all along a canal created from a retention pond nearby.
”On the south side of the park we’re thinking about creating a village concept that will feed the tourism that comes into the community,” Willis said.
This would create more places to stay and more activities for families in between sports at Grand Park.
”So, that when they have that two-hour gap, or four-hour gap, in their schedule, they have a place to go that’s walkable,” Willis said.
As for those quieter winter months, Willis and co. have bold ideas.
”We’re looking at getting winter activities whether that be ice skating rinks, whether that be an indoor ski slope,” Willis said. “We’re bouncing around all sorts of crazy ideas right now to lure people in during those winter months.”
According to the report presented to the Westfield City Council this month, there is only one indoor ski facility in the United States.
There is already movement around Grand Park. Along 186th St. just south of Grand Park, new townhomes and a new dog park are under construction.
Plus, the park is gaining more international attention. It’s a potential site for a 2026 World Cup training camp.
”It was a bit surreal when I was getting my arms around what this means for our community,” Willis said, remembering when he first found out Westfield was among the finalists.
”We do expect to get something,” Westfield said of being named a training camp. ”There is no other venue out there that can offer three indoor soccer fields and 26 other outdoor soccer fields that they can practice on.”
None of these plans are set and stone right now – just outlining what Willis said will be a top youth sports destination in the country
”My vision is to create 365 day a year destination around the park,” said Willis.
As for a timeline for the future of Grand Park, from now till October will be for workshopping ideas, by November they want a draft of a final plan ready for review and they want that final plan completed on January.
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