Legacy Sports USA President Brett Miller hopes to meet and talk to as many community members as he can today as his family company hosts a free community open house from 3 to 7 p.m. at the new massive Bell Bank Park multi-use sports complex.
"We're doing a soft opening this month as supply chain issues and rain have set us back a bit," Miller said. "We're hoping to officially open in early February now. This event is an opportunity for members of the community to come out and see what we're offering with the understanding that it's not perfect yet, but we're getting there. We're still trying to train our staff and that's difficult when we don't have everything in place so we're trying to work out the kinks this month and we ask everyone to be patient with the issues out of our control. We opened this month for our club teams to be able to practice and play and this open house will help us enhance the customer experience. We've already had so much input from the community and I want everyone to know that we hear you and are working on it."
For instance, excessive rain has delayed finishing touches on the pickleball stadium and in the Miller Lite Way they're still working on installing the zipline and about 90 percent of the arcades are in place.
"If shipping wasn't held up, we'd be in a better place," Miller said. "We're trying to stay ahead, but it's out of our control. We put shovel to ground at the end of September 2020, so to be here now is magnificent."
He said they have scheduled the official ribbon cutting for Feb. 4 and when Bell Bank signed on for the 10-year naming rights to the park, Legacy itself shifted to "the sports arm of the operations" at the massive multi-use family sports and entertainment complex in Mesa, at the border of Queen Creek, just off Ellsworth Road.
"Bell Bank is based in North Dakota and they want to make a presence out here in Arizona and they're family owned like us, so it's a natural fit," Miller said.
The privately owned 320-acre facility will create more than 1,500 jobs and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in direct economic impact back to the surrounding community. The park is expected to attract over three million visitors annually. It's the vision of Miller's father, Randy, chairman of Legacy Sports USA, and it's a true family operation as his brother, Chad, is chief executive officer.
The family is from Tempe and Miller himself went to Corna del Sol High School with his older brother, Chad, went to Mesquite High School.
"We grew up playing sports and our parents drove us both all around town. Chad played professional baseball and I played collegiate basketball," Miller said. "So we both got into business development and sales and this project was always in the back of our minds because we grew up seeing our father's plans for this facility. Since I was a little kid, he had this concept on a board and it just took the right team to get this thing funded and put together."
He said they are planning on opening two more locations in Tennessee and Texas, with this facility being their flagship headquarters.
"We want to be the Disney of sports," Miller said. "We're offering other experiences beyond the competition side, like festivals and concerts. As a family, we stop and watch people play and we can't help tearing up a bit because we're offering people an unbelievable facility to play in. We want families to stay here and play in between games for their kids. That's why we're offering all the other amenities, so that we have something for everyone. For instance, families with multiple siblings who don't all play sports, but may be gamers, we have a 16,000-square-foot arcade center. We'll be adding eSports and on the weekends we'll have live music. Our Miller Lite Way is an entertainment zone like Fremont Street in Vegas."
After today's free event, the park will charge $5 to get into the facility during the month of January and then it bumps up to the $10 fee per day they plan to charge. Miller points out that parking is free.
"We have to charge on weekends for sporting events to cover the costs to keep up the park," he said. "We'll have discounts for three-day tournaments and we're open to feedback, but we can't make everyone happy."
To learn more about the park, click here.
