Just a corner kick away from Toyota Stadium where FC Dallas plays, developers broke ground on a new 56,000-square-foot indoor soccer facility Sept. 29.
The facility, called Performance Indoor Training or P.I.T.+, is expected to open by April.
The sound of construction rattled in the background during the ground breaking ceremony while owner Brian Duncan explained why he and co-owner James Meese decided to build the facility.
"If there is one area of passion for James and I, it is the training," Duncan said. "We're really looking at how can we make this the best training facility out there using every piece of equipment we have."
Duncan said he and Meese really wanted a facility that could help train youth soccer leagues. Out of Frisco's 146,000 residents, about 33 percent are younger than 18 years old and about 10 percent are younger than 6 years old, Mayor Pro Tem Bob Allen said.
The facility will include the first soccer robotic training center in the United States. The training center is a square simulator that shoots soccer balls at a single player. The player must catch a ball and relay it into a lit window. The simulator will then measure the player's timing and accuracy.
The facility will also have cameras recording games on each of its five indoor fields.
"Our goal is to build the largest, most advanced soccer training facility in the country," Duncan said. "We're not going to be the largest in the country, but we will be the largest in the state of Texas."
Jim Gandy, Frisco Economic Development Corp. president, said the complex will expand the city's growing sports industry and bring people into the city for soccer tournaments.
"We're basically importing money into the city as people spend money in our restaurants and our retail and our hotels and even places like this where they'll come in and pay to play," he said.
Representatives from First National Bank Southwest, who helped finance the facility, and GTex Inc., who developed the robotic training center, also attended the ceremony. Allen said this facility is another example of the relationships the community builds in projects such as this.
"This is a building today we're talking about building, but it's not really the building that matters," he said. "It's the people, the partnerships and the services that we bring to the city. With the city growing the way we are, we could not be successful without our partners."
