What’s the next step for a long-discussed push to bring indoor sports complexes to Traverse City? It’s a question that has come back to the forefront after Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) decided against including the project in a $180 million capital bond proposal it will take to local voters in August.

For years, the Traverse Indoor Sports Coalition (TISC) has been looking for a way to build indoor sports facilities in Traverse City that could provide dedicated turf and courts for year-round tournaments, practices, and league play, both for students and adults. TISC, a collective of government, nonprofit, and business partners, has repeatedly touted the potential economic, tourism, and quality-of-life benefits these facilities could have for northern Michigan. Trevor Tkach – president and CEO of Traverse City Tourism (TCT), which is a part of TISC – has noted that the ability to host indoor sporting events could help bolster Traverse City’s shoulder seasons, bringing more people to town and more money to local hotels and businesses during traditionally slower times of year.

Last March, TISC had its biggest breakthrough yet: an audience with TCAPS. Under a proposed public-private partnership, TISC and TCAPS would collaborate to build a pair of community fieldhouses on the campuses of Traverse City Central High School and West Senior High. Had TCAPS gone for the plan, the facilities could have opened as early as 2025, with funding coming from a mix of private donations and TCAPS millage funds. TISC leader Jessica Sullivan said at the time that the partnership would have solved the biggest challenges the group had encountered, including high construction costs, lack of vacant real estate in Traverse City, and long-term staffing expenses.

That plan hinged upon TCAPS including the fieldhouses – estimated to cost $10 million apiece – in a bond proposal to go to voters this summer. Under TISC’s vision, TCAPS bond dollars would cover half of the $20 million, with TISC kicking in the rest. But when TCAPS trustees voted in February to finalize a $180 million bond proposal for the August 6 ballot, the fieldhouses were notably absent. The bond, which does not include a tax increase and would maintain the existing 3.1-mill rate, has been described as a “nuts and bolts” ask, with dollars allocated for infrastructure and safety upgrades as well as long-discussed renovations to Central Grade School.

Superintendent John VanWagoner said in February the sports complexes weren’t off the table entirely, and that TCAPS would be “looking at different alternatives and fundraising sources to potentially do that in the future.” A few months later, the district has yet to revisit the matter, but VanWagoner is confident the discussion will resume once August 6 has come and gone.

“We’re concentrated really solely right now on the bond,” VanWagoner says. “After we know the results from that, we can begin to talk about what types of programs or federal grants or philanthropy might be out there [to help pay for the fieldhouses]. The board has said that they’d love to look at the complexes again in the future, but our focus right now is all on that August bond.”

When asked why TCAPS chose not to include the sports complexes on the bond, VanWagoner tells The Ticker that other needs and expenses simply ranked higher on the priorities list – both for the district and the public at large.

“We talked to some different focus groups, and we looked at our needs as a district, and that data showed us that this bond really needed to be concentrated on keeping our kids safe, keeping our kids warm, and keeping our kids dry,” VanWagoner says. “The stuff that made it into the bond, it’s about finishing safety vestibules across the district. It’s about how we need 80,000 square feet of roofing done. It’s about how we need to replace 26 boilers. We just have some real meat-and-potatoes things that need to get done, and as we talked to people, we got the sense that the taxpayers were interested in hearing the conversation on those things, but maybe not beyond them. That told us that now wasn’t the right time to talk about the fieldhouses..."

For his part, Tkach understands why TCAPS wanted to play it safe. For comparison, he points back to the early 2010s, when the public twice voted down TCAPS bonds that would have built a new performing arts center at Central High School. Both of those asks came with high price tags – one for $18 million in 2012, the other for $12.9 million in 2013. While Tkach sees the current TCAPS bond request as a relatively easy sell to the community, he reasons that, “if you start to add in some of these other elements – like, in the past, an auditorium, or now, a sports complex – then you’re asking for trouble.”

But Tkach remains hopeful that TISC and TCAPS will find a way to work together in the future, again referencing the Central auditorium. After voters rejected both performing arts center bonds, TCAPS ultimately found $2.5 million in its budget to renovate and significantly modernize the existing Central auditorium – including replacements for the facility’s electrical system, sound, lighting, orchestra pit, and seats.

“So, I wouldn’t say our group is up in arms [about the sports complexes being excluded from the bond],” Tkach says. “Rather, we’re just waiting patiently and supporting the bond, with the idea that, eventually, there'll be an opportunity to have the bigger discussion about indoor sports.”