6 Important Factors to Consider When Building a Sports Complex

Whether you are building a sports complex for the first time or it’s your tenth project, its challenging to ensure that all the important factors have been taken into account. Owning and maintaining a recreational facility for people to play and enjoy sports is good for your wallet, and community’s health and wellness. However, there are a lot of different factors and considerations that go into making a state of the art sports complex. 

Here is a rundown of the top 6 things you should consider when planning to build a sports complex.

1. Building Regulations:

Building regulations vary depending on the state or town in which the land is located. Before you dig the first hole in the ground, its crucial to understand your local building laws and ensure that you plan the construction in accordance with them. You must present your sports complex construction plan to the local municipality for approval. You may have to meet with their coning department particularly. You can only move forward when your plans are approved, so get it done early in the process. 

2. Activities:

Another important factor to consider when planning to build a sports complex is the sports activities you want to host. You need to allocate sufficient resources and space to different sports that you plan to serve. Keep in mind that the elementary school soccer league will have different skill and safety requirements than a high school club team. Clearly determining the activities you want to host will help you have the right sports complex designed. 

3. Entrance and Parking:

Entrance and parking is often overlooked when the folks first plan to build a sports complex. However, they are one of the most important aspects to ensure the safety of your sports complex. Entrance safety should be secured by installing turnstiles and security cameras to control the number of people entering your facility. Parking should be particularly considered in order to compete with other sports facilities to host lucrative tournaments and matches. For that, you need to meet the minimum parking criteria per event. Event organizers have to consider how far the parking space is from the field. Another important fact to consider here is the safety of the parking lot. For instance, if you have built a parking lot near to the baseball field, make sure to protect it by the nets so that a ball or other piece of equipment damages could not damage a vehicle. 

4. Lighting:

The next thing you must factor in when building a new sports complex is the lighting. Lighting is a crucial element, especially if you want to host night games. Even if you have no plans to host night games, you still need proper lighting for security purposes. Hosting night games is another way to get the most out of your investment. Therefore, right lighting is a big deal. One of the best lights that are trending nowadays are LED lights. Although these utilities can increase the day to day expense of a sports complex, you can invest in energy-efficient lights to help lower the utility bills. LED lights typically come with an energy-saving feature that can help you save on your monthly energy bills. Moreover, LED lights are more durable than traditional ones. They should be particularly installed in the indoor sports facilities as they do not produce much heat. This can also help you cut cooling costs to keep the temperature maintained.

5. Turf Selection:

Turf is undoubtedly the most important aspect of any sports facility. This is where your athletes, customers, and visitors will spend most of their time. For that reason, you should carefully consider the type of turf you want in your field and choose between the natural or artificial turf. Another fact to consider is that artificial turf grass can quickly get warmer than its natural form. But natural turf grass requires more day to day maintenance, and you will have to bear gardening expenses too. You have to keep into account fertilizers, planting rate, planting dates, rolling, tillage, herbicide application, and more when you go with natural turf grass. 

6. Severe Weather Safety:

The next major issue you must consider is the severe weather safety. You can face a lot of different weather threats depending on the location of your sports complex. Severe weather conditions can damage your facility, injure players and guests. Lightning is one of dangerous and severe weather conditions that puts your sports complex at risk. Install a good lightning detection system while building your sports facility. A lightning horn can save your complex, customers, and visitors from any lightning threats.