COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Community Sports Park, promised as part of the city’s commitment to keep the Crew in Columbus, will be located at Kilbourne Run in Northeast Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther announced Thursday.
The 69-acre site will feature natural and synthetic turf fields, mini-pitches and a championship field with spectator stands, a locker room and lights, and co-branding with the Columbus Crew.
Original plans called for the sports park to be located on fairground property near Historic Crew Stadium. Columbus applied to secure a lease to the site, but the Ohio Expositions Commission did not grant the lease.
“While we leave the door open for negotiations with the state and remain prepared to invest in recreation facilities on the fairgrounds site, the community has waited long enough,” said Mayor Ginther.
The City of Columbus already owns and maintains Kilbourne Run, a soccer-specific facility, and will be investing millions of dollars to enhance it.
“When we announced our support for the Columbus Crew, we were committed not only to soccer but to affordable housing around the new Downtown stadium, infrastructure in the Arena District to bring in new jobs, historic minority investment in the building of the stadium, assurance that Historic Crew Stadium did not become an abandoned facility in the middle of our neighborhoods, and a community sports park that would serve as a destination for youth and adult sports,” Mayor Ginther said. “We have delivered on every aspect, except the sports park, and I am excited that today we are able to advance this component that is so important to our residents.”
In partnership with the Crew, who will use some of the fields for their Crew Academy, it will deliver fields and facilities that will increase access to soccer and other field sports for Columbus kids, and position Columbus as a destination for regional tournaments.