Columbus Crew to build a new football complex

Major League Soccer's Columbus Crew hired the Pizzuti Company to build a football park in central Ohio that may consist of 16 football fields along with an indoor training center.

The Crew has been practicing outdoors in Obetz Village since 1997.

Mark McCullen, Crew's general manager, said the club has outgrown Obetz and wants to abandon it when the lease runs out in 2009.

Sigi Schmid, Crew's coach, has made it known he would like an indoor practice center for the club, and the prospect of an expansion project is one aspect that drew the veteran coach to Columbus in October 2005.

"There clearly is a need for soccer infrastructure in central Ohio," said McCullen. "There's only one full-sized indoor facility. That's the Woody Hayes center and it's booked solid. We think we can provide not only soccer infrastructure, but high quality soccer infrastructure. We have a certain standard we envision this complex being."

The Crew hired Pizzuti Co. as developer and as an owner's agent, and then hired Acock Associates Architects to draw up the blueprints for the complex.

The location has not been decided on and there have been no estimates regarding cost or funding for the center. The project will pull interest from other cities because of the benefits of having that many top-quality football fields.

The complex would be similar to Berliner Park, the city's softball mecca that pulls amateur players from around the country in for tournaments.

"It will be a driver of youth and adult soccer from all over the state, really from the Midwest region," said Joel Pizzuti, president of Pizzuti Co. "This type of facility is popping up in a lot of Major League Soccer markets around the country."

McCullen said the club is basing its model, in part on Pizza Hut Field, which is the new home base of the MLS's FC Dallas. That field has 17 football fields next to a 21,000-seat football stadium.

McCullen said that concept would not work at the Columbus Crew Stadium because it does not have enough room to build the practice center and adjacent fields but added the club will work with Pizzuti to search for a site of about 60 to 100 acres.

"There is a plethora of flat, developable ground in many suburban communities," said Pizzuti. "Columbus also has sites ... that could work."

The company will first look at Obetz, where the Crew has 2 fields and about 5,000 square feet of indoor training space.

Doug Browell, Obetz Village Administrator, said he is not sure whether there is enough space available but that the village is "checking how we might accommodate their future needs."

"We've had a great relationship with them," said Browell.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.