Lawton trust authority buys land for indoor youth sports complex

Lawton’s indoor youth sports complex has a home, even if its walls are still a way down the road.

Members of the Lawton Youth Sports Authority signed off Thursday on two purchase contracts for 85 acres of land in east Lawton, acreage to house an indoor facility that supporters say will bring Lawton youth back to the city to play sports because they will have an indoor venue attractive enough and large enough to also support regional tournaments. The contracts with the Frank L. Richards 1992 Revocable Living Trust for 47.4 acres and with Donna Richards Cooper and Dr. Mickey Cooper for 37.59 acres give the trust most of the vacant property on the southwest corner of East Gore Boulevard and Southeast 45th Street, for a total of $1 million.

Trust Authority Chairman Brian Henry said the agreement ends several months of negotiations with Donna Richards Cooper, who Henry said is so supportive of the project, she is willing to sell a tract appraised at $1 million for $505,000.

Frank Richards, who died in June 2021, was a major player in the development of much of east Lawton and his widow said that is the reason she is so supportive of the indoor youth sports complex initiative. Cooper said Frank Richards began development efforts in east Lawton in the 1960s, purchasing land and guiding development of housing additions and other amenities for decades until his death in June 2021. Richards always had his eye on what needed to be there to attract and support families, and he would have strongly supported the youth sports complex, Cooper said with a smile.

“I’m doing this in his memory,” she said, of a decision she said her late husband also would have made.

For the youth sports authority, the purchase is the conclusion of searches and research that began in 2022 after the 2019 Capital Improvements Program designated up to $8 million for construction of an indoor sports complex that is expected to contain space for basketball that can be converted to other play and indoor turf fields. Supporters analyzed multiple sites before narrowing their focus, starting with Elmer Thomas Park and, more recently, school trust land near Eisenhower High School in west Lawton and Kiowa Comanche Apache Intertribal Land Use Committee-owned land along Cache Road at Interstate 44.

Those sites were replaced in January when the sports authority gave Henry permission to negotiate for land on the southwest corner of East Gore Boulevard and Southwest 45th Street. Henry said then the site was attractive for multiple reasons, including the proximity of MacArthur High School, Eastside Park and their outdoor sports fields. Success came Thursday when the sports authority unanimously agreed to the two contracts: one for $495,000 for the 47.4 acres and one for $505,000 for the 37.59 acres.

Henry said there were some details to work out on the land, including removal of one small business. A residential structure on a 10-acre tract on the Richards Trust property will remain. Henry said that structure will function as an office for Play Lawton (the entity running the youth sports program for the City of Lawton) and as a contractor’s office once construction begins.

Henry said while construction won’t happen immediately, he anticipates design plans will start within a month, pending trust authority action.

“We hope to be on the move as fast as possible,” he said, explaining the authority needs “shovel ready” construction plans in hand so they can begin searching for funding sources to help with what has been estimated as a $31 million building project.

Eastern Sports Management officials have said conceptual designs will help them during grant applications.

Funding already has been identified for the design work and the purchase. There is $700,000 available in the 2019 CIP and the McMahon Foundation has said $350,000 of its $3 million grant to the project can be used to purchase land.

Henry has said the Richards/Cooper tracts have multiple advantages, including easy access from the five-lane arterial (East Gore Boulevard) on its northern boundary. Water, sewer and electricity infrastructure already are in place, and the tract is larger than what is initially needed, meaning there is room for future expansion. Henry said its most valuable asset is located immediately north: outdoor athletic fields that Eastern Sports Management calls an important complement to the indoor complex.