Efforts are underway to transform a building on London Line into Sarnia's first indoor training facility serving the baseball, soccer and field sports community.
Pitch Indoor Sports will occupy a 10,000 square foot space at the former Sarnia Drywall site.
President Jamie Downton said it's been a long time coming.
"I started planning for this in the fall of 2017," said Downton. "I just saw the need. I'm a local coach with the Sarnia Brigade organization and we were doing the drive back and forth to London or Chatham, or anywhere but Sarnia. I happened to go back to school, did a little business plan, and came out of that and thought there might be something to this. I spent a lot of time at the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership with (Senior Business Counsellor) Fraser Parry. Here we are years later. We found the facility and we move in next week."
Downton said it's all about helping the kids stay active, and giving them access to quality coaching during their offseason.
"We're talking about field sizes of about 90 feet by 90 feet, give or take," he said. "The idea is that we can either host six batting cages in there at any given time, or we can have a combination of batting cages and field use. We're hoping to service as many groups as possible whether it's baseball, soccer, football, lacrosse, or rugby. We're trying to give as much time as we can to each of them while understanding that the need is so great. We're not going to be the end all be all to solve our indoor problem. This will give the kids that greater opportunity for offseason training."
Downton said while it's an ambitious target, they're hoping to open the multi-use facility by Thanksgiving.
"Every batting cage will be retractable so we can divide the space into one big open area or have the cages," said Downton.
He said it will be open for the public to enjoy as well.
"We are striking agreements with sports organizations for the prime time, but we do have off time hours and we'll be selling memberships for batting cages," he said. "At the end of the day, the facility will be open 24/7 for member use. They can actually book a time at 6 a.m. if they like. They'll get an access code and they can go in and hit baseballs."
Information about pricing and specific offerings is expected to be released in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, updates will be posted to their Facebook page.