Parents with children on traveling basketball, volleyball, soccer, and baseball teams are well familiar with the challenge of attending out-of-town tournaments and the expense of travel, food, and lodging they entail.
Bossier City’s Tinsley Athletic Complex is a large multi-purpose sports facility featuring 10 baseball/softball fields, 4 soccer fields, and 4 football fields, all equipped with lighting for evening play.
The complex includes concession stands, restrooms, pavilions, and a modular playground along with walking trails and a stocked fishing pond.
But it does not have indoor basketball or volleyball courts.
The Bossier Civic Center has 24,000 square feet of open exhibit space, a 7,500 square foot banquet hall, a catering kitchen and a concession stand.
New event centers on both sides of the river have reduced the number of events hosted at the Civic Center in the last few years.
Converting the open event area into basketball courts that can be configured into volleyball courts would certainly fill a void in the indoor sports venues in Bossier and Shreveport and provide a great opportunity for tournaments with both local and traveling sports teams.
The location is well known and easily accessible, and the renovation costs would be minimal compared to new construction.
All the glorious economic impact projections that fueled the Caddo Commission to place a $60 million general obligation bond package on the November ballot for an over-the-top Caddo sports complex certainly would apply to a Bossier indoor sports complex.
No doubt the Bossier Chamber of Commerce, the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission, and the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourism Bureau will endorse such a project along with Louisiana Downs, Live! Casino, Margaritaville, Horseshoe Casino, and Boomtown along with Bossier businesses.
John came to Shreveport in January of 1977 when he was transferred to Barksdale AFB.
He’s been active in Shreveport politics since deciding to make Shreveport his home.
John practiced law for 40 years and he now monitors local politics. He regularly attends Shreveport City Council and Caddo Parish Commission meetings.
John is published weekly in The Inquisitor, bi-monthly in The Forum News, and frequently in the Shreveport Times.
He enjoys addressing civic groups on local government issues and elections.