Construction of new Lee’s Summit sports fieldhouse to start this year: ‘Very exciting’
Lee’s Summit officials expect construction of the city’s large new sports fieldhouse, with much-needed space for basketball and volleyball courts, to begin later this year.
Designs are being finalized ahead of the opening of a bidding process that would launch in March or April, David Dean, the city’s project manager for the fieldhouse project, told City Council and Parks and Recreation Board members at a joint meeting last week. Construction is projected to begin in late summer or early fall, with an opening date of late summer or early fall 2027, he said.
Currently, plans call for a facility totaling a little more than 98,000 square feet, with space for 10 regulation basketball courts and 14 regulation volleyball courts, Dean said. The fieldhouse would also have a concession stand, meeting space for 250 people and office space for the building’s operations team and for parks and recreation administrative staff.
At the Jan. 13 meeting, Dean showed city officials a fly-through video with late-stage designs for the space featuring wide open court spaces and viewing areas for spectators.
“This is obviously a very exciting project for us,” Dean said. “It’ll be the largest construction project that the parks and recreation department has taken on in a number of years. Really looking forward to it.”
At last update, the city estimated the fieldhouse’s construction budget to be around $24 million, with funding coming from a 1/4 cent voter-approved sales tax for parks capital projects. The city has projected annual operations and maintenance costs to be around $250,000.
The complex will be built in the Oldham Village development near the U.S. Highway 50 and Missouri Route 291 interchange. Construction at the development, helmed by Overland Park-based Drake Development, is underway. The project is expected to be anchored by a new Costco and be home to apartments and restaurants.
City officials signed off on purchasing the roughly 8.5-acre fieldhouse site at 101 SW Oldham Parkway for around $5.2 million in September 2024.
At the Jan. 13 meeting, parks board member Casey Crawford hailed the project, pointing to the difficulty of finding court space for youth basketball locally.
“Being able to have a central location not only for our youth programs, but for a central geographic location for those coming from south, from whether it be Cass County, Lone Jack, Overland Park, to be able to have a central location, a great fieldhouse, is very key,” he said.
“I’ll be happy not to drive all over the city anymore, being able to play locally too, with my kids,” he said.
