The Warrenton Athletic Complex held its first baseball games on the new turf fields earlier this year. Warrenton Director of Operations Jon Struckhoff said the turf has been a marked improvement for the complex and has helped to bring more business to the area. 

“The turfing of the fields, we brought in more people than we’ve ever had out there before,” said Struckhoff. 

The turf infields at the ballpark were installed earlier this year and held their first tournament on Easter weekend. They have helped attract more tournaments to the area, according to Struckhoff. 

“There was literally a tournament every single weekend of the summer,” said Struckhoff. 

According to the Warrenton City Newsletter, the complex averaged 23 teams per tournament each weekend over the summer. 

The complex had a couple open weekends before the start of fall leagues and will be hosting more tournaments as fall baseball gets underway. 

Aside from the attraction that the turf infields presented as a more desirable playing surface, they also helped keep games from being rained out, with only a couple days’ worth of games being postponed over the summer. 

Struckhoff also said they saw an increase in sales tax revenue over the summer and although it is difficult to say exactly where the increases came from he said there was a correlation with the additional tournaments that were hosted this summer. 

The fall newsletter also reported an 11% increase in tourism tax revenues for the city in the spring alone, discounting any additional increases from the summer or this upcoming fall. 

Unfortunately the data received by the city is tracked by the month instead of the week or the day, making it difficult to parse out the impact of individual tournaments. Struckhoff said there were several businesses, however, that felt they did see an increase in customers during those tournaments. 

“We had a lot of businesses come to us and say ‘wow, what did you guys do? We have more people here in ball uniforms this year,’ so the sales tax numbers definitely showed a boost for this year,” said Struckhoff. 

He felt that while they could not draw a direct correlation between the improvements to the athletic complex and increases in tax revenues, the connection was likely. 

“We can’t say that our sales tax numbers went up X number of dollars because of our ballpark, we don’t know that,” said Struckhoff. “Every year it’s been going up a percentage, but this year we saw a bigger percentage of a boost because of that.”

There are further improvements planned at the ballpark, although there are no completion dates yet as they are dependent on continued growth in the area and at the ballpark. 

Struckhoff said if that growth continues they do hope to install an additional concession stand and bathroom closer to the fields. He also said there was a possibility they would continue adding turf fields. 

“If things continue to work out and grow like we think it will, there is a possibility that we could turf more fields in the future,” said Struckhoff. “Those are a long time away, but if it works, we’re going to keep going on.”