Westfield plans sports complex

The mayor of Westfield hopes to build a youth sports complex with a 4,000-seat multipurpose outdoor stadium, indoor sports facilities and fields for baseball, soccer, softball and lacrosse. The roughly $60-million sports complex would anchor a 1,500-acre development by locally based Estridge Co. along Towne Road between 146th and 161st streets. The project, called Symphony, already features the Wood Wind Golf Club. All told, the sports component and clusters of retail, hotels and residential development around it would require a public and private investment of $1.5 billion, Mayor Andy Cook said. The city hopes to attract an unaffiliated minor-league baseball team to play in the outdoor stadium, and also hopes to lure the YMCA as a major tenant. The ultimate goal is to turn Westfield, a bedroom community without much of an identity, into the “Family Sports Capital of America.” The image above is an early rendering showing the layout of the 200-acre complex. The full story is here. What do you think?