The Lawton City Council recently approved an amended budget for the Lawton Youth Sports Trust Authority for Fiscal Year 2025, and approved the proposed youth sports complex project through the design phase.
The City of Lawton allocated $425,000 for operation, management, administration, maintenance, and equipping LYSA programs and facilities for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
In addition, $1.25 million has been allocated for architectural and engineering work on the new indoor sports complex envisioned on the east side of town. Brian Henry, chairman of the Lawton Youth Sports Trust Authority, told Southwest Ledger last week that he thinks ADG Blatt architects from Oklahoma City “can be done with the design phase by mid-July.”
The City Council and LYSA want the project design completed soon in order to “get a lot better idea” of the total cost of the sports complex, he said.
LYSA envisions an indoor sports facility housed in a pre-engineering one-story metal building encompassing 145,000 square feet and costing an estimated $250 a square foot, Henry said.
When the project was initially conceived six years ago, “We figured an 85,000 square-foot building costing an estimated $12 million,” Henry recalled. “The project has almost doubled in size since 2019.”
“If our projections are good,” LYSA will build everything planned for the indoor sports facility, Henry said. However, if costs ultimately are deemed too high, LYSA could do what the City Council did during negotiations on the Aquatic Center under construction in Elmer Thomas Park: scale down some of the features.
Current estimates on the sports complex range from $35 million to perhaps $60 million, depending on what amenities are included and on the impact that tariffs might have on construction materials such as rebar, structural steel, piping and ductwork.
The facility would be constructed on 120 acres that LYSA “controls” off East Gore Boulevard near MacArthur High School.
LYSA recently bought 40 acres west of MHS, the City of Lawton has approximately 40 acres that it leases to the sports authority, and “we have an agreement in principle with Lawton Public Schools (LPS) for 40 acres” adjacent to Eastside Park, where the city has four fields. LYSA has a 55year lease on the school land with an option to renew for another 55 years, Henry said.
The lease calls for payments of $48,000 per year. However, that term can be abated “so long as we provide the school district with an option to use the amenities for 600 hours every fiscal year,” Henry said.
LYSA contracted last month with Standard Engineering and Field Services, at a cost of $33,654, to conduct a geotechnical study of the construction site.
The Oklahoma City company will evaluate the soil’s and/ or rock’s strength conditions; recommend subgrade preparation and foundation types; and check the soil plasticity characteristics. Soil plasticity refers to the ability of soil to deform without cracking or breaking when subjected to stress; soils with a high plasticity index typically contain more clay.
Indoor amenities The sports complex would have eight indoor basketball courts, each of which could be converted into two volleyball courts.
The proposed sports building also would house administrative offices, bathrooms, and a kitchen. It also would accommodate two indoor artificial turf fields – each 85 feet wide by 170 feet long – for youth and adult soccer and flag football competition.
“With the amount of land that LYSA controls, we could construct 10 outdoor turfed fields” to accommodate soccer and flag football games, as well as diamonds for softball and baseball games, Henry said. However, “The number of fields that we build will depend on funding.”
The “specific scope” of the sports complex will be determined “at a future date,” the City Council wrote.
Budget approved A $1,675,000 amended budget for the project was endorsed last week by both the City Council and the Youth Sports Trust Authority. It includes:
• $345,000 for “support programs” that may include “the operation, management, administration, maintenance, reconstruction and equipping” of LYSA facilities in FY 2025.
• $80,000 earmarked for LYSA “operations” expenses.
• $700,000 from municipal Capital Improvements Program funds “solely for the purchase or lease of real property to be the site of a new sports complex and/ or the design of the sports complex.”
• $550,000 appropriated from the city’s General Fund for buying or leasing land and for design of the sports complex.
The McMahon Foundation awarded LYSA a $3 million grant that will be parceled out over six fiscal years at the rate of $500,000 each year. The grant “allowed us to purchase the land we needed,” Henry said.
“We were then able to use the $700,000 in CIP funds from the City of Lawton that previously were designated for land purchase, and instead apply it toward the design costs,” he said. “That enabled us to get the design phase underway.” Youth sports are relatively cheap; popularity grows LYSA counted 2,158 participants in Lawton youth sports in Fiscal Year 2022, Henry told the City Council, noting that at least some of those were youngsters who participated in multiple sports. That number grew to “just under 2,936 in FY 2024, he added.
Adult sports programs attracted 2,988 participants in FY 2022 and 3,134 in FY 2024.
“We offer every sport except basketball twice a year,” Henry said.
LYSA uses LPS basketball courts, but trying to schedule games on them more than once a season “would be nearly impossible” because of the number of games the schools play during their regular seasons and the playoffs, Henry said. Additionally, after each season “they shut down the gyms to refinish the floors” in preparation for the next season.
Prices that Lawton’s peer cities charge for their youth sports programs range from $85 per participant per sport, to $125 and as high as $160, Henry said.
In comparison, Lawton currently charges $45 per sport for youth sports programs. “When we took it over it was $25 per sport,” which was “unsustainable,” he said. Consequently, “We’ve been increasing the price gradually each season.”
A season in each sport is eight games in eight weeks, at a weekly cost of $10. A game typically is calculated at an hour, although some may be shorter and some go on longer, say for an hour and 15 minutes.
Henry also told the City Council about vandalism that has occurred at four sites used by LYSA.
For example, at Louise D. McMahon Park at 38th Street and Lee Boulevard, vandals destroyed bathroom sinks and toilets. Thieves have stolen rakes and trash cans, and each of the four sites has been vandalized once, Henry said.
Henry believes that what’s driving the push for the youth sports complex is “occurring hand-in-hand with the city’s desire for Lawton to be the choice for families to raise their kids.”