Financial deal imminent for Bellingham, Bridgewater BCL soccer/lifestyle complexes

November 8, 3:30 PMBoston Pro Soccer ExaminerL.E. Eisenmenger

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Interconnecting main indoor fields with concourse
Image courtesy of BCL Premier Sports

BCL Premier Sports COO Ted Doyle told Boston Pro Soccer Examiner that the company is wrapping up the financing and hope to close early in the new year on two of their three proposed indoor/outdoor sports complexes. The innovative spectator-friendly Bellingham and Bridgewater sports facilities, off routes 495 and 24, should both be up and running by September 2010.

Besides offering several full-sized indoor and outdoor soccer fields, CATZ training facilities, basketball courts, and locker rooms, BCL will offer viewing areas and lobbies more like a hotel than a sports facility and cafes with healthy food choices for adult clientele. The lounges will have sofas and comfortable chairs, WiFi, and 30-plus flat screen TVs showing worldwide sports programming as well as live game action from the site.

Mike Stollar, a principal of BCL, is also the managing partner of the Boston Breakers, but Mass Premier Soccer (MPS) will be the anchor tenant, among others which could include the Breakers preseason. The Bellingham and Bridgewater facilities will be constructed simultaneously and BCL expects each to have over three million visitors annually.



Doyle says the facilities will draw players, teams, and leagues from the highest levels.

“The fact that they’re going to be around and using our site means that younger players are going to be exposed to those players,” said Doyle. “It’s going to make for a higher level of play across all our sports and make them much more successful. Strictly from a playing standpoint, we think they’re going to learn more, be inspired more and we’re going to focus on community building using the web and the facilities.”

Complex concourse
Image courtesy BPL Premier Sports

The Bellingham facility is situated on 63 acres just west of route 495 and estimated to cost $40 million.

It will have two connected full-size indoor fields 70 yards wide and 115 yards long with 60’ clear ceilings, which each can be broken into four smaller fields. Above the field is an open mezzanine, like a deck, where spectators can sit and have coffee or lunch and watch the game or they can sit inside in a lounge and use laptops with WiFi.

The structure will also hold three basketball/volleyball courts, locker rooms with showers, CATZ training, RBI baseball, function rooms, and several food facilities. Outside, there will be six full-size turf fields fully lit for night games and stadium seating for approximately 2,500 at the main field.

Bridgewater is a 50-acre site with a 278,000 square foot building with similar indoor facilities, but two outdoor soccer fields and two baseball fields, all lit. The necessary permits for both facilities have already been acquired.

BCL initially selected the 495-based sites with the help of Florida-based Sports Facility Advisory and brothers Peter and Joe Bradley, who founded MPS in 2001. The Bridgewater and Bellingham sites and a third 15-acre Watertown site (former Raytheon property, already purchased) were originally planned to open summer 2009, but the credit market crash set them back and the Watertown site was put on the back burner. Originally, BCL believed that soccer would be their main tenant.

“But as it turns out,” said Doyle, “lacrosse is at least as big as soccer, maybe bigger. A lot of young athletes take to lacrosse because it’s fast, there’s a lot of scoring, there’s hitting. Statistically, the Eastern Massachusetts chapter of US lacrosse is the fastest growing chapter in the country. Because lacrosse has only recently emerged as a sport and the way it’s played, it’s really having a tough time getting field space. Lacrosse is played around the net and it really destroys grass fields.”

All the BCL fields will be turf, specifically Sprinturf, to allow play in rain and early spring. Certain fields will be dedicated to certain sports, but BCL will use temporary paint to line fields for tournament play.

Complex Plaza
Image courtesy BCL Premier Sports

The thinking behind these facilities is right on target. The days of kids running out to corner lots or parks to play a pick-up game of soccer never really existed in Massachusetts. Property is far too expensive, insurance liability too risky, suburbia too expansive, and kids’ time in sports, academic, and cultural activities tightly booked. Yet, there's a huge deficit in indoor and outdoor field space and the actual athletic endeavor consumes only a small portion of the dedicated time.

The consequences are that parents or older athletes spend hours and expensive gasoline stuck in gridlock or breakneck traffic trying to get to practices and games at distant fields or in stark, grim facilities that serve food they otherwise would never consume. Yet the hours these adults and young athletes spend in traffic and at these dank gyms often consume a majority of their leisure time and somewhat decrease their quality of life.

Doyle played soccer at Brandeis, still competes in adult leagues and understands these issues well.
“As an adult athlete myself,” said Doyle, “I get up off my couch at 9:30 PM and drive to Hingham from Newton. Oh, man. It’s a reality that we all face, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And we’re in essence doubling the amount of field space that exists right now indoor.”

BCL is creating lifestyle destinations and developing these athletic communities by exposing them to higher level live and televised sports and through accessible web content available through WiFi on the site.

“Our sports director Gary Beatty is from Ireland,” said Doyle, “and our general manager of Bellingham David Pike, is from England and they’re constantly talking about how part of our learning experience in our facilities should be to introduce players to the European game and particularly in regard to soccer.”

Worldwide games will be broadcast through the site, as well as tournaments and games at the facilities. Teams will be able to have their games videotaped for instructional purposes, which is huge as many players never actually see themselves play. Besides the usual purposes of scheduling and payment, Doyle says BCL will be “tracking statistics of players and teams and leagues, and aggregating video from games played in our facilities and instructional video for coaches, players, and officials, and allow people to share content as well.”

BCL claims that the rates will be identical with existing facilities. “It’s not necessary to charge a premium to be successful,” said Doyle. “We’re gearing to a positive spectator experience as much as we’re gearing toward a positive playing experience.”

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