Group envisions local indoor recreation facility

SANDPOINT — “If you build it, they will come.”

Most baseball fans, or movie fans for that matter, remember the classic line from the movie Field of Dreams, when Kevin Costner hears a mystical voice and proceeds to turn his Iowa corn field into a baseball diamond.

Sure enough, the baseball players did eventually come.

A group of local residents believes the expression could also hold true in Sandpoint. The heavy usage of the recently-named William Johnson Athletic Center, or WillJAC as it’s referred, has exposed a glaring need in the community for a suitable indoor recreation center.

The facility, named in honor of the late SHS lacrosse player Will Johnson, is located in the old grainery building, and is essentially a 60 by 120 foot covered structure with a cement floor. Despite its clearly-insufficient size, the modest facility has been bustling for most of the winter with indoor lacrosse, baseball, softball and soccer, just to name a few of the sports.

“It is clearly evidence that there is a need for this in the community,” said Kendon Perry, who along with Bruce Demko and Carrie Logan is heading up a group hoping to find a more user-friendly and permanent indoor facility. “It’s a seed that has illustrated that a facility like that will be used.”

Anyone who has spent a long winter in Sandpoint knows there exists a dire need for an indoor recreation center. While there is talk of putting down turf and making more improvements to the WillJAC, there is clearly a long term need for a more expansive and nicer venue.

Perry, Demko and Logan are hoping there are more folks in the community who share their vision and might be interested in joining their cause.

“We’re open to ideas and warm bodies and open minds,” said Perry, who envisions a multi-use facility with myriad uses. “It would be nice if it was a dedicated facility that says today is lacrosse, tomorrow volleyball and the next day basketball.”

Logan believes the facility could really benefit an organization like TOPSoccer, to say nothing of the 1,000 plus youth who play soccer that could help keep the facility busy year-round.

The group is open to any and all options and ideas, and are hoping the right situation can avail itself in the near future.

“It’s a matter of identifying the location and the funding,” said Logan. “That partnership between a whole bunch of groups is what’s going to make it happen.”

For questions, ideas or to join the cause, call Kendon Perry at 661-4747.