New sports complex to rise at SRP

Ifirst heard of the plan to put up a football pitch at the SRP a year ago and I had a lot of questons. Would it be sustainable? Could the owner afford to bleed money?

When I heard nothing of it afterwards, I thought the dream was abandoned. It turned out, it wasn’t, Ugur Tasci was simply working behind the scenes to make it possible.

And yes, I still think that a football-only facility would be business harakiri, but last Wednesday, after attending the launch of the Dynamic HERB Sports Inc., all I could see was the numerous possibility of such sports complex.

For years, we’ve complained how Cebu lacks a world-class venue and by 2018, we will have it. Boy, will we have it because one man has dared to work on his dream. Before you begin thinking of Theater of Dreams, though the pitch will be Fifa standard, the grandstand will only hold 400 people, but will have room for mobile bleachers.

It won’t be football centric, though football will have a key part. DHSI hopes to promote a sports lifestyle by providing a venue for Cebuanos to basically see green.

Some 10 years ago, health buffs who want to see green or jog would go to the IT Park; it was the go-to place for touch rugby, frisbee and the-like, but then buildings rose up where the green spaces used to be, so they transferred to the Cebu Business Park. Thousands jogged there every night, while the rest play football, rugby, or just spend the time to sit on the grass and look at the sky (I think I saw a few making out, too). We no longer have that, too. That’s what DHSI wants to address, to give Cebuanos a venue—a world-class one a that—for sports or anything related to an active lifestyle. A green space in a toxic concrete jungle.

Aside from the Cebu community, I think the new sports complex could be a perfect venue for the training camps of the national football, volleyball and futsal teams. Or those of the UAAP, NCAA teams who want to have a camp outside of Manila.

Then there’s the various tournaments that it could possibly hold.

But of course, the primary market of the new complex is the Cebu sports community, who for years have cried for a new venue. We are finally getting one.