© 2024
NPR for Northern Colorado
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

New Colorado Sports Complex May Boost Rural Tourism

Rocky Mountain Sports Park
The illustration with North to the right, shows the 620 - acre complex with retail.

A $225 million sports complex is expected to be built in the Northern Colorado town of Windsor, about an hour and a half drive north of Denver.

As planned, the Rocky Mountain Sports Park would be home to 60 baseball fields and a 10,000 seat stadium, in the hopes of attracting a minor league baseball team.

Windsor Mayor Kristie Melendez thinks a sports complex with restaurants and shops is a preferred outcome for the land, originally zoned for light industrial use.

“It could have been these big metal warehouses, it could have been a cement plant,” she said. “I’m thinking a ball field and a lot of beautiful green fields kind of exemplifies who and what our roots are.”

The economic impact to the town has yet to be determined Melendez said.

“There will be a traffic impact study, and out of that there will be a determination of what will be needed in terms of access in order to be able to accommodate the number of people they are expecting,” she said.

Construction of the privately funded complex is scheduled to start October 2017, with the first phase completed by the fall of 2018. It joins a growing effort to add destination-type amenities that attract families -- and their tourism dollars -- to Northern Colorado. 

Related Content