TUCSON — Pima County’s multi-million Kino Sports Complex this week when its vast perpetually empty parking lot will be converted into an outlet for the Community Food Bank. Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller applauded the move to finally put the Complex “to good use.”
Since the ribbon-cutting ceremony in January 2020 of the new $31.2 million Kino Sports South Complex expansion, the facility has had little use.
Supporters of the white elephant Kino project had hoped to highlight it during the 2020 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers, which were set to take place in March 2020, but the event postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The last time the Complex was used to host a large crowd was in January 2020 when it was one of the sites used for the Fort Lowell Soccer Shootout, a popular soccer tournament. The Complex was reportedly a hot spot during the City of Tucson’s Senior Olympic Festival pickleball games in late January.
Prior to that it had few if any sizeable events unless you count Easter weekend in 2019, when Pima County joined the City of Tucson in opening up a public space to house and feed dozens of illegal immigrants seeking asylum status after they were released from custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.
The $31.2 million expansion includes a pickleball area and 12 new natural grass, lighted fields, and new parking areas – enough to accommodate more than 700 additional vehicles.
Huckelberry also spent the tens and millions of dollars on another 90 acres intended to be developed into sports-related hospitality businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and retail establishments. But with the economy in the tank, tax revenues expected to be a trickle in the near future, and little interest in the property prior to the pandemic, it will likely sit idle for years according to real estate experts.
The more than 160-acre Complex has been controversial since the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to build a stadium in 1996, after Supervisor Dan Eckstrom fought for the inconvenient location. The MLB farm teams that had been training in Tucson for years fled to more desirable locations in the Phoenix area.
[metaslider id=65385]