Proposal for new turf ground in Colorado Springs

The ICC Americas office's relocation from Toronto to Colorado Springs may spark plans for the creation of a new turf pitch facility and national training base in the city for the USA national team.

Colorado Spring Sports Corporation president and chief executive Tom Osborne has told ESPNcricinfo that since the initial stages of recruitment in December, that kicked off the process of luring the ICC Americas regional office to Colorado Springs, a turf cricket ground has been mooted in an altered plan for a $30 million, 70-acre sports complex that is being labelled the Field of Dreams.

"They're looking at potentially putting a cricket pitch in between two soccer fields and utilising it for a practice area," Osborne told ESPNcricinfo regarding proposals for a revised plan. The plan of a multi-purpose field with a turf pitch open to reconfiguration is similar to the design of the Indianapolis World Sports Park, which hosted the ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 championship in May 2015.

The Field of Dreams complex is being coordinated by local businessman Craig Ochs and is slated to break ground later this year or early next year. The facility includes plans for baseball, softball, football, lacrosse and rugby fields, as well as indoor training facilities. The proposed complex is located 12 miles north of downtown, just north of Interquest Parkway and on the eastern border of the United States Air Force Academy campus.

Osborne says that an alternate or complimentary plan is also being discussed to include a cricket field in another publicly funded $120 million project called City for Champions. The four-part project, which is yet to break ground, has plans for an Olympic museum, a sports medicine centre, relocation of parts of the US Air Force Academy visitors centre and gift shop. The fourth part, in which the cricket facility may be factored into, is the construction of a sports and events centre.

Osborne also indicated that such a bold plan was being pitched with the intent to eventually move the future headquarters of USA cricket's governing body - whether that is USACA's current headquarters in Lake Worth, Florida or an entirely new entity - to Colorado Springs alongside the ICC Americas office. ICC officials would not confirm any plans regarding the move of a USA Cricket headquarters, but Osborne stated that the ICC Americas offices will be located at the El Pomar Foundation on the Spencer Penrose Estate.

Other tenants in the building space shared by ICC Americas will include USA National Karate Do Federation, Running USA and the USA Bobsled & Skeleton Federation. The El Pomar Foundation has made a $10,000 grant to the ICC Americas to enable them to use El Pomar office space rent free for the first year.

Regarding a new turf facility in Colorado Springs, ICC head of global development Tim Anderson said that such a facility could encourage a further step in developing a national training centre for USA cricket.

"We think it's a great community and we think cricket being based in Colorado Springs is going to provide a great springboard for the sport's future in the USA," Anderson said. "There's obviously some fantastic general sporting facilities in Colorado Springs and having USA cricket teams coming for training camps and other activities in Colorado Springs is very possible.

"We, however, will need a better cricket facility here to do that and we're certainly talking to lots of people about having a better cricket facility here. But because we're now a part of the family, we're now able to access things that we wouldn't be able to access before. So we're excited about that and I think they are as well, so I think there's a mutually beneficial partnership established that I think will serve us well."

Currently, there is only one cricket field in Colorado Springs, an artificial pitch installed in 2002 at the sprawling Memorial Park multi-purpose complex located a mile south of the US Olympic Training Center. Colorado Springs CC president Raymond Mascarenhas says it is utilised as the home ground by their own club, as well as Alburquerque CC, whose members drive 400 miles from New Mexico to use it for matches in the Colorado Cricket League.

Mascarhenhas also said it is used annually for the Rocky Mountain State Games, an Olympic style multi-sport games weekend festival in July featuring 10,000 athletes annually. Last year, nine teams featured in, both, tennis ball and leather ball 10-over cricket tournaments. Having another cricket facility beyond Memorial Park could open up participation to more teams in the future at the Rocky Mountain State Games, while Osborne says he is trying his best to convince the ICC staff that the Rocky Mountain State Games model can be used to get cricket into similar events held in other states in an effort to spread the sport.

"In talking with the cricket guys, the national congress estate games has about 28 or 30 states that run an Olympic-style sports festival," Osborne said. "One of the things we've suggested is trying to get cricket in each of the different state games."

"They need to get a whole strategic plan in getting into grassroots, in getting into classes at the PE level, state games, or various different community-based organisations like the YMCA. It all depends on the leadership they hire and how that individual is going to work with the community, work with us, raising funds, developing fields, developing the high performance plan and training, bringing in conventions and clinics. It just runs the gamut."