What a difference a couple of years make.
Exactly two years ago Friday, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission held the first public hearing on a plan that looked like it would spell the end of the Abbott Sports Complex.
The Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation had decided it could no longer pump funds into the money-losing facility and had put it up for sale.
A local developer had made an offer, with the caveat that he wanted to turn the complex into an industrial park, and the hearing in front of the Planning Commission was about a proposal to change the zoning on the land from designated green space to industrial.
The commission's 6-1 vote in favor of that plan seemed to be the beginning of the end for the nearly 25-year-old complex.
Instead, it sparked an effort to save it that included a lawsuit to stop the sale. That lawsuit ended favorably for the Lincoln Sports Foundation, which has been running the complex for more than a decade.
People are also reading…
As part of a settlement, the Abbott Foundation essentially gave the complex to the Lincoln Sports Foundation. LSF will not have to pay off debt on the facility but also won't get any more financial help from the Abbott Foundation.
"It's been a tough four years for the complex, since about 2015," said Dan Lesoing, president of LSF, said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday. "Now we're going in the right direction."
Despite the tumult and uncertainty of the past couple of years, most of the users of the facility have stayed. That includes the Cornhusker Shooting Stars basketball program that Lesoing runs, a gymnastics school and some soccer clubs.
One of the soccer clubs is new, and another, Capital Soccer Association, is returning to the place it called home for two decades before leaving for a couple of years.
Jim Bovaird runs FC Lincoln, formerly Team Extreme, and has used the complex for about five years, for most practices and some games. He said he was confident things would work out in LSF's favor, "but it's just unfortunate that it took so long," he said.
Bovaird, who also is involved with the Cornhusker Shooting Stars, said one of the things he likes about the complex is that it is more affordable than other sports complexes around town.
Lesoing is hoping to leverage that affordability.
Unlike most of the other sports complexes, which are run as for-profit operations, LSF is a registered nonprofit, which means it doesn't pay property taxes, can accept donations and can afford to donate time to other nonprofits.
Another advantage is size. The complex sits on nearly 200 acres. In addition to its 92,000-square-foot fieldhouse, it has more than a dozen soccer fields, two other indoor facilities and a motocross track.
"We're big enough we can be home to multiple clubs in the same sport," Lesoing said.
One of the problems, though, with being so big is the expense of keeping things up.
The complex has suffered for years from lack of maintenance, and Lesoing said earlier this year in a presentation to the Lancaster County Visitors Promotion Committee that it has lost a lot of business, including tournaments and league play, because of its poor condition.
He said Friday that the facility "needs a little tender loving care."
That may be an understatement. Lesoing had asked the Visitors Promotion Committee for a $100,000 grant to rehabilitate the complex's outdoor soccer fields, a request that was denied.
The complex did get a $10,000 grant last month from the committee to help it rehab its motocross track.
Lesoing said the first priority going forward is to get the soccer fields in better shape. Future plans include remodeling the fieldhouse and replacing its former tennis bubble with a permanent clear-span structure.
There's also the possibility of expansion at some point. The complex has unused land that could be used for baseball and softball fields.
Those plans require a lot of money, and Lesoing said he and the LSF board are in the process of identifying potential funding sources.
Bringing the plans to fruition also will take support from the community and from users, and Lesoing is confident that will happen.
"Now that we're going to stay, we believe tenants will come back and help us," he said.