BILLINGS — A $20 million, 57,000-square-foot multi-sport complex is taking shape at Amend Park in Billings, and it is nearly ready to open its doors.
The Amend Recreational Center will bring basketball, volleyball, and pickleball under one roof — a first for Billings sports fans.
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Forty-eight thousand square feet of fresh, gleaming hardwood stretches across the facility, with basketball, volleyball, and pickleball courts as far as the eye can see.
Facility Manager Chris Martin said the layout is designed to run multiple games simultaneously.
"If you were looking at running a youth volleyball tournament, you could have eight games going on, 16 teams playing at the same time," Martin said Tuesday.
Pickleball courts offer even more capacity.
"You could have 12 of those courts, 24 teams playing," Martin said.
Basketball follows suit.
"Basketball for youth, the same. We can go 16 for youth, and we could go eight teams for standard length," Martin said.
Those numbers matter because the need for a facility like this is significant. According to the Billings Chamber of Commerce, Amend Park will help tap into a $50 billion sports tourism industry. A single tournament at the facility could bring more than 1,200 competitors to the courts over a weekend.
"Participatory sports tourism really has to deal with youth and amateur tournaments, where most of the economic impact comes from, the amount of teams that will come in," Casey Conlon, director of sports tourism for Visit Billings, said.
Conlon said the facility is a huge addition for the region.
"It's really kind of groundbreaking when it comes to the state of Montana," Conlon said.
With youth and adult leagues growing rapidly, those groups need this space. The Amend Rec Center is aiming to open in early August. Pricing for court access has not yet been decided, but tournament registrations are already open.
"We're taking tournament registrations right now. And then when we get closer, we're going to start doing some rental registrations," Martin said.
Martin said the public will also help shape how the space is used.
"We're looking into a bunch of different ideas for how we want to program this place. It's going to be kind of seeing what the public likes best too," Martin said.
