A large south metro-area youth soccer club, Colorado Storm South, would like to expand its play fields to Centennial’s Potomac Park, which is currently under a master planning process to determine what will happen to the vacant property.
Heather Vidlock, principal planner for Centennial, said the city acquired the roughly 40 acres near Dove Valley Regional Park at South Potomac Street and East Fremont Avenue in 2011. It used to belong to the United States Postal Service, which supposedly was going to build a distribution center, but never did.
The soccer club wants to convert the space at Potomac into about eight to 10 AstroTurf fields. Storm already own the Gates Sports Complex at East Arapahoe Road and Jordan Road, which has 13 fields, and the club uses the eight fields at Dove Valley Regional Park. Still, the organization has gone from 1,000 kids in the early 1990s to 4,200, saidMarc Francis, president and general manager for Colorado Storm.
“It’s the growth, plus the fact they will be turf fields and not grass fields,” Francis said. “We can only utilize the grass fields for about eight to nine months a year.”
He said the organization spends close to $1 million on irrigation annually.
The organization is circulating a petition in an effort to convince the city to give it the property. One of the alternative plans for the property includes a turf-field complex with about 10 multi-purpose turf fields and a sports stadium.
“With turf fields they can put lights on the fields, which we can’t do on the grass field,” Francis said. “There’s no advantage of putting lights on the grass fields.”
He said Colorado Storm South also has to contend with other youth sports organizations that want access to the fields Storm already uses, not to mention the new property at Potomac. Francis said they would likely share the fields with other organizations, such as lacrosse and football leagues.
Steve Trittschuh, director of coaching for Colorado Storm South, said acquiring fields at Potomac Park will be a boon to the economy because it would mean regional and national tournaments could be held there, which would bring 20-30 teams and revenue for local hotels and restaurants. He said those big events normally take up 20 or more fields and it’s hard to have the capacity for events year-round with only grass fields.
“If we can have that many fields it won’t just help Storm out, but other organizations and affiliations down here,” Trittschuh said. “I just think if you can put that type of complex there then I think it will benefit (the area) economically.”
Other proposals for Potomac Park include a sports complex with four baseball fields, six multi-purpose fields and four volleyball courts; an open space natural habitat; a green sports complex with a community garden, three multi-purpose fields, a playground, four volleyball courts, four basketball courts, five tennis courts and a sports stadium; and a community park with an outdoor pool, community garden, four basketball courts, a dog park and five tennis courts.
Vidlock said these are just proposals and the process isn’t over yet. She said the city is still collecting feedback from the community.
She said several people said at a recent open house that “it would be nice to have a mix of different facilities however it’s developed so you could have it open to a variety of sports organizations and be open to the public as well.”
She said staff will pursue the master planning process for the next couple of months and round it out with council feedback, at which point it will be put on hold until they get direction from council.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2671, cwoullard@denverpost.com
