Douglas County shares details regarding Zebulon Regional Sports Complex, drawing both excitement and concern

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. On Tuesday evening, Douglas County officials hosted an open house for the Zebulon Regional Sports Complex, located in Sterling Ranch, to give community members the chance to meet project partners, discover planned sports amenities and learn how the project would be paid for.

Denver7's Douglas County Reporter Tyler Melito was in attendance, speaking with Director of Parks and Recreation for the county Steve Shoultz.

Watch Melito's report from the open house in the video player below:

Shoultz shared how there has been a lot of work behind the scenes to get Zebulon to where it is now with vertical construction hopefully set to begin soon.

"We're moving everything forward kind of incrementally but this is kind of the work that the board has approved previously that we've been working on," Shoultz said.

Slated to be open by January 1, 2029, Shoultz recognized the amount of work still needed to be done, but knows the need Zebulon will fill in DougCo.

"This is, I would say, step one to a historic investment here in Douglas County, in parks and rec amenities, to meet that need," Shoultz outlined. "The things that we continually hear is we've got great parks, we've got great recreations, but they're not enough. Is it going to answer all the need question? It's not. It's going to take this and future projects to be able to meet the growing demand here in the county."

While Zebulon is expected to cost a total of up to $100 million including construction, site development, utilities and earthwork, Shoultz explained once operational, the county is confident in the facility's ability to generate positive net operating income, and essentially fund itself, if not in year one, shortly after.

"The board's vision for this project is that it is self-sustaining, and although it will take a couple of years to do so, through working with a partner that's done it before, we can actually project the revenue based on experience to be able to show that in a handful of years, the dollars invested in this or the staff time invested in this will be offset by the amount of revenue this facility makes," Shoultz shared.

That partner Shoultz eluded to is KT Development. Luke Taylor is one of the point people for the Zebulon Project. He told Melito how, from the start, DougCo leaders wanted to ensure taxpayers would not be the ones footing the bill for Zebulon and shared how KT Development has been making sure that is a reality.

"We have to be right on what's in here," Taylor said. "So we spent the first four months of this project interviewing over 120 different potential partners that to use this in every sport out there, from tournament operators to food and beverage to fitness to swimming, you know, you go down the list. It'll be a a profit center for Douglas County. It will not be an ongoing taxpayer burden."

Attendees of Tuesday's meeting, like Todd Weaver, shared their excitement for the project not just for DougCo, but Colorado.

"It's not just going to be impact on Sterling Ranch or Castle Rock or Highlands Ranch. The entire Denver metro area, and quite frankly, the state of Colorado, will receive benefits," Weaver told Melito.

Weaver also said his main reason for attending Tuesday was to learn about the details.

"I'm most interested in actually the schematics, what it's going to look like, what the architectural renderings were looking like, the layout of the buildings, the fields outside, you know, the the softball, the baseball, the practice fields," Weaver said.

But Zebulon is a project that has a number of residents concerned.

One of those people is Marla Gifford. The Louviers resident is able to see the Zebulon site from her front yard.

"The thing that bothers me the most about it is that it's going to be two years minimum of construction, and we all know that it's not going to be two years," Gifford told Melito. "And that's just phase one, with the four baseball fields and the soccer fields is going to be up the side then, and another baseball field, and so that that's going to be phase two."

Gifford shared her support for more spaces of kids to play sports in DougCo, but isn't convinced Zebulon is the best way to do that.

"I work in rec centers so I'm not against a sports center, I'm against the way they're doing this," Gifford outlined. "We wanted parks and recreational facilities, like rec centers for the kids. Not one great, big giant Zebulon. To build a gigantic sports center and expect it to be to be supported is, to me, pretty high risk."

Gifford added that part of what she loves about Louviers and unincorporated Douglas County as a whole is the wildlife.

"We have bears, we have coyotes, we have everything out here." Gifford described.

So with Zebulon, she is worried about what that means for the wildlife.

"With all of that construction, what about the elk? What about the deer that roam through here and that roam through Louviers," Gifford said. "Once you interfere with their migration and they're trying to keep migratory paths and trails open for them, but that's major."

Shoultz addressed that concern as one they are certainly conscientious about.

"CDPHE works closely with us and our partners to make sure that any risk to public are handled before we do anything vertical on that site," Shoultz said. "That's a process that we've been undertaking since the beginning, and we continue to this day."

You can read more about the Zebulon project here.