THE DALLES — Following their regular meeting Oct. 18, the Wasco County Board of Commissioners held a work session focusing on the proposal of an athletic complex to replace Kramer Fields, a follow-up to a similar session held on Aug. 2.
In November 2021, Mid-Columbia Medical Center — now known as Adventist Health Columbia Gorge — proposed building a new state-of-the-art hospital campus on the county property at 808 Walnut St. in The Dalles, which currently houses Kramer Fields. In their initial presentation, they also emphasized the importance of Kramer Fields to the community and introduced the idea of building a new athletic complex in Wasco County to replace it.
At the previous work session, Wasco County Administrative Officer Tyler Stone explained that the county had hired Hunden Strategic Partners to do a complex market analysis study on the supply and demand for sports and recreation in The Dalles and Wasco County. Hunden Project Manager Ryan Sheridan presented the findings of the study, which were previously reported in the Columbia Gorge News on Aug. 16.
At the October work session, Sheridan once again took the floor, starting with an executive summary of to-date findings. In this summary, he recapped the findings of the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) summary, noting that there was found to be a significant opportunity for an indoor/outdoor sports facility within The Dalles and Wasco County.
“There’s an overwhelming amount of demand from sports organizations across all types of indoor and outdoor sports with a very limited supply that has really constricted these organizations’ ability to grow and allow everybody in the community to participate,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan also pointed out that while there was a high supply for outdoor sports facilities in the Pacific Northwest as a whole, The Dalles and Wasco County have a distinct advantage over other PNW facilities due to the weather patterns in the area. The study found that there is a need for facilities to host sports tournaments in the region, which Sheridan believed The Dalles could benefit from if it had an athletic complex.
In the previous presentation, Hunden Strategic recommended two phases of the project, outdoor and indoor. For the outdoor facilities, they suggested eight grass fields and four artificial turf fields, as well as six baseball diamonds with turf infields and grass outfields. For the second phase, they suggested an indoor facility with six basketball courts — the equivalent of 12 volleyball courts. According to Sheridan, this would give The Dalles one of the largest indoor facilities in the region. Hunden’s findings also indicated the facility would begin making a profit after seven years, though Sheridan noted that the facility itself would be less about directly generating revenue and more about bringing sports tourism to The Dalles.
Following his summary, Sheridan opened the floor to the commissioners for questions and concerns. One thing that was brought up was the idea of collaborating with the Northern Wasco County School District on the project, either as a funding partner or through allotting them periods of time at the facility, which Sheridan agreed seemed promising.
“With the amount of overlap in the timing of the new [high] school, with the bond, we do think it makes a lot of sense to be partners in a facility like this,” he said.
They also talked about the potential to incorporate other outdoor recreation to the facility, such as walking or mountain bike trails.
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At the regular county meeting before the work session, the board approved contracts with Gorge Arbor Care for fuel reduction on county-owned properties. Additionally, they voted to appoint Abigail Herriges to the Wasco County Board of Property Tax Appeals.
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