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Sports Tourism Commission takes public input on Outdoor Sports Complex | News






sports complex design

PADUCAH — Changes could be coming to the McCracken County outdoor sports complex project design. The McCracken County Sports Tourism Commission held an open house Wednesday evening at the Paducah Convention Center to hear what features members of the community want to see at the complex.

Some of those suggestions included multi-use fields and some new additions. Nancy Sutton’s suggestion is to add pickleball courts. “We have hundreds and hundreds of people playing pickleball in this community, but we have zero dedicated pickleball courts open for the general public,” Sutton said.

The commission met earlier in the day to discuss its long-term future. During the meeting, members had an extensive discussion about bringing in an executive director to handle the day-to-day tasks of the Greenway Sports organization, which is the county’s way of advertising tournaments for the complex. Sports Tourism Commission Chair Jim Dudley said they’re strongly considering bringing someone in to fill that role, but emphasized there are still a lot of details to work out.

“I think our end goal is going to be to have an executive director that kind of oversees sales of the travel industry,” Dudley said. “So that’s going to look like helping Michelle here out at the expo, potentially fishing tournaments in the river, marathons, cycling events, could even be potentially partnering with SFM (Sports Facilities Management) at the complex.”






open house

Having an executive director will essentially streamline communication for setting up events.

“It’s going to be working alongside SFM, working along the convention center here with the basketball and volleyball courts, working with us as the sports tourism commission as well as the CVB, city, county,” Dudley said. “I mean, that person’s going to have to wear many hats.”

In September, the commission chose Sports Facilities Management to oversee the outdoor sports complex. Dudley said the commission expects to have that contract signed within the next two weeks. There’s still no date set for when they’ll break ground.