Event centers costing under $100 million to construct are multiplying rapidly these days. In answer to the increasing construction in that genre, particularly amateur sports complexes, VenuWorks is increasing its involvement in privately managing that venue type.
Its most recent contract is with the city of Jacksonville, N.C., which is building One City Center, a sports complex for indoor sports like basketball, volleyball, and wrestling, and outdoor sports like baseball and soccer.
Mike Silva, COO, and Toby Peters, Chief Development Officer, show off VenuWorks Sports at VenueConnect in New Orleans.
Toby Peters, Chief Development Officer of VenuWorks, who was manning the VenuWorks booth at VC25 in New Orleans, explained that VenuWorks has always had sports-oriented centers in its private management book, but is now expanding its portfolio of community sports centers. “We have a lot of expertise working with clients in secondary or mid-sized markets,” Peters said. “We’ve always hosted tournaments and AAU and amateur sports. It’s been a great opportunity to diversify a little bit using our same infrastructure. They all have food and beverage, operations, programming, and recruiting.”
To facilitate the outreach, VenuWorks has added David Stow as a consultant. Stow spent 21 years working for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee on the facility side and is the former CEO of the TBK Bank Sports Complex and Entertainment Center in Bettendorf, Iowa. He founded Stow Sports Management in 2022.
Conversing with Stow before their current collaboration, Peters noted that Stow brought up the fact that there was a growing need for private management in these buildings. “They’re building them everywhere now, and cities are constantly reaching out for consultants to give them new ideas, new plans,” Peters learned.
Jacksonville is a neighboring city to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. The city is looking to provide more activities for local and military families. One City Center is in the design phase now and has brought VenuWorks in to consult, with the intention of becoming the project manager and then operator. Construction begins in early 2026, with opening in mid-2027.
“We’re excited to get involved with the project, because when we first started talking to them, they only had a small warming kitchen attached to this huge banquet hall,” Peters noted. “Their plan was to let third-party vendors come in for free. We recommended building a full kitchen and hiring a chef.”
“Then we started talking about how great it will be to have this facility with so many basketball courts, but where do the parents go? So, we suggested they add a green room-type space, so people can sit down and watch TV and break out their laptops,” Peters recalled. “It’s been exciting taking their drawings and saying, ‘Hey, did you think about this? Did you think about that?’”
LP3 is the architect for City One Center, which is envisioned as an economic district, said Stow, who was reached by phone as he was traversing home from a different convention. Phase one includes eight basketball courts, which can be converted to 16 volleyball courts. Four of the courts can be converted to a center-court arena setup.
Jacksonville is a “growing town with a very strong military community. There are a lot of young families in the area, and the only available facilities to handle larger events are outside their community,” Stow said of the thinking there. Wilmington is the nearest city with entertainment and sports venues, but they are not that far from Raleigh. Jacksonville’s city officials are hoping to keep those young families closer to home. The rationale is not different than that in a lot of secondary and tertiary communities post-COVID-19. It’s reminiscent of the civic center construction boom post-WWII, with the end-stage design and the big open floor.
“They’re actually developing a whole new community around it, including mixed-use businesses, residential, retail, and hotels,” Stow said.
The second phase will include nine soccer fields, one of which is built as a championship court, and an outdoor amphitheater.
“They’re not afraid of adding additional phases. They just don’t know what those are going to be yet,” Stow said.
Stow agrees it has been a collaborative process with the city. “They were against the food piece at the beginning, but we came in to show that not only is it valuable, it’s necessary. They’re afraid of taking business away from the community, but if you don’t provide the parents and the families the right services inside the building, they won’t come back a second time,” he said. “There’s so much business to go around when you have a large volleyball tournament with thousands of kids, so those local businesses are still going to thrive and love every weekend that you host a tournament.”
Peters noted that they are having such a great experience in Jacksonville, he has been scouring the internet for similar city RFPs. “We have since put in proposals for a couple of other projects that are going through the same process.”
