LAWTON – Lawton’s search for a site for the city’s indoor youth sports complex is over.
The Lawton Youth Sports Authority voted 6-0 March 14 to purchase nearly 85 acres of land on the southwest corner of East Gore Boulevard and Southeast 45th Street, south of MacArthur High School, for the complex.
The Frank L. Richards 1992 Revocable Living Trust owns 47.4 acres of the property. Richards’ widow, Donna Richards Cooper, and her husband, Dr. Mickey Cooper, own the remaining 37.59 acres.
The authority approved one purchase contract for the Richards Trust property and a second contract for the Cooper property. The board will pay $1 million for the land altogether – $495,000 for the Richards Trust property and $505,000 for the Cooper property.
The price for the Richards Trust property reflects its appraised value. Donna Richards Cooper agreed to sell the second property for $505,000 – a $495,000 discount from the property’s appraised value of $1 million.
The authority’s budget for acquiring land and designing the sports complex will supply about $700,000 for buying the property. The rest will come out of a $3 million grant from the McMahon Foundation, which authorized the authority to spend up to $350,000 of the grant funds on land acquisition.
Authority members broke into applause after they approved the two contracts.
“This is awesome,” said authority member Carey Monroe. “So exciting.”
Chairman Brian Henry said he appreciated the community’s support for the sports complex.
“Here we have $500,000 in a reduced- price sale from Donna,” he said. “The McMahon Foundation’s pledging $3 million. We’re off and running.”
Henry said the authority’s next steps include amending the contract with Eastern Sports Management, which runs the city’s youth sports program, to include design consulting services for the sports complex. Site selection process The purchase concluded a lengthy search for a suitable site for the sports complex, which began after the authority was created in 2022. City officials originally wanted to build the complex in Elmer Thomas Park but later decided to look for another site.
At one point, the authority considered leasing one of two sites for the complex: The property next to the Grandview Sports Complex on Southwest 52nd Street, or the site at Cache Road and Interstate 44, north of Elmer Thomas Park. The Grandview site belongs to the Oklahoma Commissioners of the Land Office, while the site at Cache and I-44 is tribal trust land belonging to the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes.
But the potential cost of leasing property prompted the authority to abandon that idea in favor of buying the land. In January, the board authorized Chairman Brian Henry to begin negotiations for purchasing the vacant property on the southwest corner or East Gore and Southeast 45th Street.
Two months later, the board approved the contracts with the Richards Trust and the Coopers.
Lawton City Councilman Randy Warren, who represents the council on the authority, thanked the Richards Trust and the Coopers for providing land for the sports complex.
“The youth of Lawton will be thanking you for years to come,” he said.
Donna Cooper said her late husband, Frank Richards, played a key role in developing east Lawton. She added that building the sports complex will help fulfill Richards’ vision for that part of town.
“I am so happy because the kids in this community – the kids of Lawton – were important to Frank,” Cooper said. “And so, giving something to them that they will always have is great.”