The Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio, East of Cleveland, has been put up for sale. The announcement was made by Colliers International on Monday morning.
“The options and creative opportunities are boundless. With over $100 million invested since its debut in 2009, a savvy investment group could acquire the entire project for a tiny fraction of the replacement cost! Or, they could submit a proposal to acquire only a part of the property, perhaps the 100,000-square-foot office building or a portion of the excess land,” a news release by Colliers reads.
The massive sports facility includes 750,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor arenas and competition space. It’s most recent famous resident is LaMelo Ball, the younger brother of Lonzo Ball of the Los Angeles Lakers. Arguably the most famous high school basketball player since LeBron James, LaMelo Ball briefly turned pro then returned to high school competition.
The facility is also significant in swimming, however. 8 high schools use the pool as their home facility; the Lake Erie Silver Dolphins practice there as well.
Speaking more broadly, the facility is home to a FINA scholarship training enter, where athletes from around the world are given the opportunity to live and train at SPIRE and have access to facilities and training that aren’t available in their home countries. The facility is also scheduled to host the 2020 NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships.
The facility is designated as a USOC and Paralympic training site.
Spire also has 100 acres yet to be developed. The Ashtabula County Board of Revisions set the facility’s value at $11.5 million in October, which is a reduction from the $54 million value set in 2014. As part of that valuation process, Waronzof Associates Inc. of California opined that the facility is ‘too big’ for the rural area where it is located. It has only turned a profit once, in 2010, when it received $19 million in contributions, and lost an average of about $3.4 million from 2010 to 2016.
No sales price has been set for the facility.
I still believe it has one of the best pool in the nation, except at somewhere of nowhere.
It is a fast pool but not well placed. I swam usms nationals there but had a 30 min drive to pool. Even teams from Columbus do not usually go to meets there. If it was 2 hours south, it would be used every weekend due to lack of pool space in central Ohio. Hope it survives!
I really hate to see this happen. Another really nice facility for club teams that could be shuttered. They’ve hosted masters, age group and fina approved meets. Poor management by owners?
Swam USMS Summer Nats there in 2015. I don’t know if “poor management” is correct, more like a dream that was just a little too big, especially for the location. Seems the revenue projections were optimistic, and the buildout stalled before the full vision was realized. Somebody tried to do something excellent, but came up short. I don’t think different management would have made a difference.
Ever heard of Mission Bay?
From an audit commissioned by the county:
“In many respects, the facility provides a sports training and competitive venue that is world-class; it is certainly capable of meeting the needs of a wide variety of athletes training for or competing in national- and world-class events,” reads one summary comment in the draft of the appraisal, per The Star Beacon.
“The facility is so large, however, and so poorly located (in a rural area of Ohio) that it does not have the population to create attendance, visitation (or) utilization by athletes and coaches or trainers. It is grossly over-capacity and located in much too small a market or trade area to garner the revenues necessary to support a competitive return on… Read more »
There used to be a ton of info about Spire, from its original design concepts to its overall vision as an athletic/academic institution that might still be found with a Google search. Not sure if they’ve pulled all that down or not. In essence, it looked to be modeled after Bolles where regional families of means, along with a host of foreign influx of cash and great athletes would create a great athletic institution where kids would also attend high school. Believe it or not, there are a lot of well-to-do families in Northern Ohio, Western PA, and Southern Michigan that could’ve been a great target market. Was up there 5 years ago and literally had to step over piles… Read more »
Rumor has it that the residents who own the cottages on Lake Erie that are just a few miles away from Spire have fought tooth and nail against the building of hotels. The hotels would create competition and cut into their ability to rent their lake front cottages.
Cuz every college swim team rents out lake front cottages, right?
That I believe. We ended up staying out there at a condo through Airbnb for the conference meet we attended. Was about a 10-12 ride into Spire. However, thats not an option for the teams and they had to stay 25 mins away
I live in the area and worked/trained at the SPIRE institute back in the summer of 2012. I do agree with the comments on middle of nowhere (that’s why I like living here). However, since the area is a booming wine country, and is growing every year, hotels are beginning to pop up within the surrounding area. I hope that this place can be rescued, as it has some enormous potential. The place still isn’t done being build yet with much of the aquatics facility still hidden behind walls (lots of wounded warrior treadmill pool, etc.)
LaMelo the most famous high school basketball player since LeBron? Zion Williamson begs to differ…
If you’ve been up there, you can see the issues that have caused it to be up for sale
Surrounding town has no hotel/restaurant infrastructure. Nearest decent sized town is 25 mins away, making college conference meets tough for the teams and parents with tons of back and forth. Nearest airport is ~1 hour away.
Building clearly ran out of capital. Back of building where pool resides remains a work in progress with walls but unfinished. Parking lot all gravel with temporary lights.
Swim facility is impressive as is other sports but you do the math and they’d have to be booked most weekends all year long to get into the black
Yeah our team is staying at John Carroll University about 45 minutes away. We’re doing that so the team can train some during the first few days of the trip and get cheap lodging, but I imagine it causes headaches with conference meets. They were probably working with a “Build it and they will come” mindset…Probably need other facilities like field hockey, tennis courts, gymnastics/cheer facility, and stuff like that that can all be used year-round and then maybe hotels will be built nearby.
Braden, Lonzo Ball is the current laker, Lamello is the current stay at home brother
I’m really failing to see why they would even get mentioned in regards to the Spire Insitute. How about highlighting all the awesome events they’ve had there recently. Is our society that Kardashian-ed that the fact that he once stepped foot on the property is newsworthy?
Hopefully the news release doesn’t have LaMelo listed as the younger brother of famous LA Laker, LaMelo Ball