Campground vs Sports Park in Lowell CAMPGROUND WINS!
There is a contingent of people in the Lowell area who are proponents of putting a sports complex in the space currently occupied by the Kent County Youth Fair. I strongly disagree.
Before I present my reasons for favoring a campground head and shoulders above a sports complex at the Fairgrounds, let me first mention that I have a lot of respect for those who want to see such a complex in Lowell. I also want to mention that I recently watched an excellent segment on HBO's "Real Sports" in which they detailed how much money parents and athletes spend at such complexes, so I am not ignorant of their economic potential for an area. However, Lowell is NOT such an area.
The reason I can say that with such conviction is simply because we do not have any place for the families who might be attracted to such a complex to spend the night. Imagine a family from Traverse City or Toledo who might travel to Lowell so that their son or daughter can compete in a soccer, softball or baseball tournament scheduled over a week-end in Lowell. Where on earth is that family going to stay the night? Our beautiful Main Street Inn is full more often than not - especially in the summer months. It only has a total of seven rooms. We have another half dozen rooms at a couple of area B&Bs, but they are heavily booked in the summer. I know this first hand because a sales rep of ours was in town for an event at our store in June and needed a place to stay for two nights. The Inn had one night open and the B&Bs laughed at me because they were booked solid for week-ends all summer.
So if the family travels here to compete and has no place to stay, they are going to head to 28th Street in Grand Rapids. They will probably have dinner and breakfast someplace close to their room - so there goes the majority of any economic benefit to luring folks here to compete.
I blogged about the economic sense of a campground: Economic Reasons For a Campground
On the other hand a campground by its very nature captures the campers. They are PAYING to stay the night in Lowell. Should they decide to dine on something other than what the might prepare, then Lowell is the logical choice. As I have mentioned in other posts, one of the main reasons I am so excited about a campground in Lowell is that we already have many key infrastructure components in place to capture and keep campers in Lowell.
Here are some photographs of the infrastructure in place: We Are Ready For Campers
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| Many would like to see a sports complex replace the KCYF - not me!! |
Before I present my reasons for favoring a campground head and shoulders above a sports complex at the Fairgrounds, let me first mention that I have a lot of respect for those who want to see such a complex in Lowell. I also want to mention that I recently watched an excellent segment on HBO's "Real Sports" in which they detailed how much money parents and athletes spend at such complexes, so I am not ignorant of their economic potential for an area. However, Lowell is NOT such an area.
The reason I can say that with such conviction is simply because we do not have any place for the families who might be attracted to such a complex to spend the night. Imagine a family from Traverse City or Toledo who might travel to Lowell so that their son or daughter can compete in a soccer, softball or baseball tournament scheduled over a week-end in Lowell. Where on earth is that family going to stay the night? Our beautiful Main Street Inn is full more often than not - especially in the summer months. It only has a total of seven rooms. We have another half dozen rooms at a couple of area B&Bs, but they are heavily booked in the summer. I know this first hand because a sales rep of ours was in town for an event at our store in June and needed a place to stay for two nights. The Inn had one night open and the B&Bs laughed at me because they were booked solid for week-ends all summer.
So if the family travels here to compete and has no place to stay, they are going to head to 28th Street in Grand Rapids. They will probably have dinner and breakfast someplace close to their room - so there goes the majority of any economic benefit to luring folks here to compete.
I blogged about the economic sense of a campground: Economic Reasons For a Campground
On the other hand a campground by its very nature captures the campers. They are PAYING to stay the night in Lowell. Should they decide to dine on something other than what the might prepare, then Lowell is the logical choice. As I have mentioned in other posts, one of the main reasons I am so excited about a campground in Lowell is that we already have many key infrastructure components in place to capture and keep campers in Lowell.
Here are some photographs of the infrastructure in place: We Are Ready For Campers
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