Too cold to play outside? A long-awaited indoor sports center just opened in Patton Township
Seven years ago, Michael Lee had an idea for an indoor sports center that would serve the physical and holistic needs of children and adults in Centre County.
On Saturday, the Nittany Valley Sports Centre opened its doors, boasting 70,000 square feet of turf fields, basketball courts, a fitness center, gymnastics training space and physical therapy office.
The long-awaited indoor facility off Fox Hill Road, near University Park Airport, has many eying up the chance to play sports all year round.
Lee, the general manager, called the center important because the area doesn’t “have a facility in town that offers the combination of league play and instructional play and physical fitness conditioning.”
But it’s not just a place for people to play sports and stay in shape during the winter or bad weather, he said.
“I feel pretty strongly that there’s a lack of opportunities for a lot of kids in this area,” said Lee. “I believe, philosophically, (the center is) going to offer more opportunities for children to play sports of any kind.”
Right now, Lee said, the center is mostly renting out space to leagues and organizations that want to play on the fields or courts. It’s also operating the Parisi Speed School, a speed and agility program geared toward kids ages 7 to 18 with adult classes and a fitness center.
Centre Elite Gymnastics occupies a 16,500-square-foot space with two large gyms for practice, an adult fitness room and studios for dance classes. Energy Rehab and Fitness, a physical therapy office and gym, occupies 2,200 square feet.
Eric Wales, executive director of Soccer Shots of Central and North Central Pennsylvania, said families whose children participate in the soccer programs are enthusiastic about the center’s opening.
“What we really enjoy about it is, it’s a center that’s going to be a hub for multiple opportunities for kids to participate in sports,” he said.
Soccer Shots primarily runs programs for children ages 2 to 6, which is where the soft turf fields come in handy. It’s a demographic that tends to fall over, he said.
Many soccer clubs in the area, like the State College Celtic Soccer Club and the Centre Soccer Association, are taking advantage of the practice fields in the center, Wales said.
Soccer Shots is looking to offer more community events, like free clinics, and build summer and winter soccer leagues to give more children the opportunity to play sports.
The space is “also really important for those kids who have bigger dreams, who want to do this more longer term,” Wales said.
Facility organizers hope to expand the sports center’s programming based on what the community wants, Lee said.
“We’re still so early in things, and we still have so much to do to get to where we want to be,” he said.
This story was originally published February 28, 2019 at 7:31 PM.
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