Under one roof: Major league-size infield, batting cages, weight room and more.
At least one indoor sports facility is in the works in Dane County right now, and it looks to be a dandy.
GRB Academy — which already operates a 14,000-square-foot indoor baseball facility with 10 batting cages on Felland Road in Madison — broke ground last month on a 52,000-square-foot baseball and softball facility in DeForest.
Expected to be completed by the end of the year, the new facility will be located at 6385 New Towne Road. According to GRB Academy owner Greg Reinhard, it’s poised to become one of the finest indoor baseball and softball facilities in the Midwest, boasting such amenities as a Major League-size infield that can be made smaller for youth players, 30-foot-high ceilings, 12 batting cages convertible to pitching lanes, a 60,000-square-foot weight room, a pro shop, shower spaces and concessions.
“It gives players in the Midwest a chance to do what they need to get better,” Reinhard, a Marinette native who spent time as a pitcher in the farm systems of the Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Rays, told the Wisconsin State Journal the day he unveiled plans for the $3 million facility. “Certainly, when you watch recruiting or the Major League [Baseball] draft, it’s still Southern-based, because they have the time to be outside. There’s no way we’re going to change that other than to put a big roof up.”
Reinhard also oversees GRB Rays elite travel teams for boys and girls, which have propelled more than 125 area players to college programs.
DeForest officials anted up to build four outdoor baseball and softball diamonds near the new GRB Academy, along with football fields and tennis courts, which they hope will help make north-central Dane County a youth sports destination.
Update: Two years ago, I wrote about plans to build a $15.6 million indoor/outdoor athletic facility in eastern Dane County along the south side of the Highway 151 corridor near Reiner Road. The 135,000-square-foot center would have opened in 2015 with a field suitable for football, lacrosse, baseball or softball, plus an extreme climbing wall, a CrossFit gym, batting cages and classrooms.
Last week, Neil Stechschulte, Sun Prairie’s economic development director, told me that the nonprofit Wisconsin Athletic Foundation, which proposed the facility, is still trying to raise money and land financing for that project.
