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LEBANON, Ind. — The city of Lebanon is planning on building a brand new sports complex.

The city it partnering with Card & Associates Athletic Facilities to build the 270,000-square-foot building, which will be located off I-65 and State Road 39.

“We saw what other communities were doing in the youth sports market, and we think with our proximity to I-65, a great location in between Lafayette and Indianapolis, we’re like ‘we think this could make a lot of sense,'” said Lebanon Mayor Matt Gentry.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH MAYOR MATT GENTRY:

Gentry says the focal point will be a new, state-of-the-art fieldhouse that will include eight basketball courts and two indoor turf football fields. The plan after that is to build around it.

“Once you have that, they project to have 50,000 visitors per month at this facility, so once we have that type of foot traffic, that will support restaurants, retail, hospitals, and hotels around it,” Gentry said.

He says the fieldhouse will be used for “national-type tournaments” on the weekends, but during the week, it can be used for local youth sports and adult leagues, as well as other Lebanon and Boone County citizens.

The fieldhouse will cost $35 million to build.

“I am please to say though that it’s not increasing taxes at all,” Gentry said. “We’re actually using the taxes that this facility, along with the other housing developments that is part of this, to generate the taxes that’ll actually be used to pay for the financing of this project.”

Construction on the fieldhouse will start in Spring 2022.