Seminole County weighs indoor sports complex plans for Sanford area
Seminole County is weighing indoor sports complex plans that could cost $66 million to $100 million, with the biggest version built for 6,000 spectators near Sanford.
Seminole County is deciding how big, and how expensive, a new indoor sports complex should be at Moore Station Fields near East Lake Mary Boulevard and Moore’s Station Road, where county leaders want to turn a parcel beside Boombah Sports Complex into a year-round events engine for Sanford.
The three concepts now under review range from roughly 70,000 square feet to 172,000 square feet. The largest version would include 12 basketball courts, 24 volleyball courts and seating for 6,000, a scale that would move the project well beyond a youth-sports gym and into the realm of a major public events facility. Commissioners have also discussed a parking deck option tied to that larger plan, with one estimate putting the price at as much as $100 million; the same concept without the deck was estimated at about $66 million.
That price gap underscores the public tradeoff. A larger building could host more tournaments, graduations, banquets, conventions, cheer competitions, gymnastics, karate, youth wrestling and post-hurricane sheltering. But it would also ask taxpayers and hotel guests to carry a much heavier burden for parking, land use and construction, while smaller versions would save money but limit the crowds and event types the county could chase.
The county’s earlier planning work, done by Hunden Strategic Partners, sketched a 139,000-square-foot facility with at least nine basketball courts that could convert to 18 volleyball courts, 900 seats, 900 parking spots and room for concessions, a restaurant or cafe, a stage, lounge space, a performance and physical therapy area, and meeting rooms. That study projected more than $1.4 billion in net new spending over 30 years, along with $649 million in net new earnings and 382 net new full-time-equivalent jobs.
Seminole County has already moved to help finance the project through a Tourism Improvement District funded by a $1.75 nightly per-room fee on hotels with 60 or more rooms. County estimates say the assessment could bring in about $3.2 million a year over a 10-year term, with a seven-member advisory board overseeing the money.
Supporters say the county needs the complex to compete for year-round youth sports tourism and to keep school graduations closer to home rather than sending families to UCF or the Dr. Phillips Center. That argument carries weight in a county that hosted 89 tournaments last fiscal year, producing $58.8 million in economic impact, and more than 90 sporting events that drew more than 185,000 visitors and about $59 million. Boombah Sports Complex, named Newsweek’s No. 1 youth baseball complex in America in 2025, has become the county’s proof point for what sports tourism can already deliver.
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