Downtown Business Opportunities: The Des Moines Sports & Education Complex

Now that the Des Moines Building is up for sale again, here’s what I think some philanthropist should do with that building and for the children of Des Moines.

Opportunity: The Des Moines Sports & Education Complex

Business Case: Thanks to the Pappajohns we now have great free art for our residents to appreciate and learn from. Now if we can find another donor that would like to give back to the community in a different way. Truth be told, I’m not much of a sports fan, never have been, probably from growing up in a family that obsessed too much about sports, but having living here in Des Monies for a little over six years now, I could see what I’m about to describe as totally possible.

Resident here love sports and getting their kids involved in sports programs of all types. This business opportunity would be mostly a not-for-profit enterprise, but there would be an associated for-profit business to work into the place. So here’s how this would work.

The overall building would need to be renovated to make this vision work. The bottom floor of the building would feature a a lobby that is decorated in sports memorabilia and sports photography of local teams, both community teams and local school teams. Off of the lobby would be an entrance into a for-profit business which would be your typical sports bar with all of the plasma TVs hanging from the walls and ceilings but instead of them being tuned into national or college sports, they would be tuned into local community sporting events, for example high school basketball or football events. During non-live coverage of local sporting events, there would be previously recorded games running or sports education films, or events featuring home-town heros, such as Shawn Johnson. The restaurant would feature your standard sports bar fare, such as burgers, chicken wings, salads, etc. There would be definitely family spin to the restaurant.

On the other side of the lobby would be smoothie bar and health cafe. This area would feature pre and post training and work out shakes and meal replacement snacks. From the lobby, visitors would take elevators or stairs up to the desired floor based on the sports their children would be taking. For example, there would be a floor or area dedicated to the following sports-related activities: basketball area would feature a gymnasium-style area where youth could learn to place basketball and participate in team practices; wrestling area; gymnastics area – named after Shawn Johnson; actually each area could be named after a significant hometown hero in that sporting event; indoor track and field; ballet area – area set up learning ballet; boxing area; kick-boxing area; karate and other martial arts. You get the idea, just imagine a 14 story building filled full of sports areas.

So the way this would work is that youth ages 5 to 18 that live in the 50309 zip code would be able to sign-up for and attend any sports training free of charge. For youth outside of 50309, they would be able to buy a yearly membership for each child that would let them learn as many sports as they want to sign-up for. Membership dues would be on sliding scale based on their parents income.

Instructors/coaches for each of these areas would be on a volunteer basis or corporate-sponsored and individual classes or teams would be able to sign up for the space on a first-come first-serve basis. For example, maybe a local basketball enthusiast would want to teach kids to play basketball on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the basketball area and on Mondays and Wednesdays, a local community basketball team would use the facility for their practices, team members would just also have to be members of the Des Moines Sports & Education Complex. The facility would be open from 6am to 10pm 7 days a week, with the smoothie and snack bar using the same hours, but the sports restaurant operating on more of a typical restaurant schedule.

The top floor of the building would contain a small auditorium where kids and their parents could come and see local celebrities, such as Coach Kirk Ferentz, speak to them about the importance of a well-rounded sports education. This auditorium would also feature a large projection screen for viewings.

Suggested location: The 14-story Des Moines Building in the heart of downtown.