Casper City Manager Shares Details on Possible Sports Facility Near Event Center

At the Casper city council pre-meeting on Tuesday, city manager Carter Napier said he has spoken with a non-profit about possibly building an indoor sports facility somewhere near the Ford Wyoming Center.

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Napier said he came to the council to advocate for the project and that when a more concrete plan is brought forward, there will also be discussions on how to use land owned by the city for the project.

According to Napier, the facility could host a variety of sports and bring tournaments into the city.

"It could include basketball courts, it could include potentially indoor soccer fields, it could include volleyball courts," Napier said. "Hopefully, it'll be versatile enough that the relationship between this facility and the event center would be such that we'd be able to attract big tournaments into the community that the event center would normally not be able to host on their own."

Councilmember Amber Pollock asked about who would manage the building, and Napier said at this time he believes the non-profit would operate, or hire an operator, to manage the building.

Councilmember Bruce Knell asked if the facility would cost the city any money and Napier said they would not have to spend any money and just need to offer the land where the facility would be built.

The council agreed that Napier should continue to pursue the project and bring more details to the council as they become available.

Jolene Martinez, the assistant to the city manager, said there are many details about the project she is unaware of and believes, as Napier finds it appropriate, will share with the rest of the community.

Martinez said she does not know where exactly the facility will be built, how much it will cost, or when it will be completed, but that Napier has been in talks with some amount of people that have not yet started a non-profit but are looking to start one for this project.

While it's unclear at this time how likely the project is to be completed, Martinez said Napier wouldn't have mentioned it if he thought it didn't have a chance of becoming a reality.

"The city, we have a lot of people that come to talk to us," Martinez said. "I'm just saying the city in general, Carter, the council, come to talk to us about all kinds of ideas. Sometimes those ideas really happen, sometimes they don't work out, despite the best efforts of everybody that they end up not working out, not making sense or however. So the fact that he even brought it to council Tuesday night when it was not on the agenda, means to me that he thinks it looks pretty darn promising."