Popular youth basketball venue closing, but company has plans for a comeback
Shuttered since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2-year-old Kentucky Basketball Commission, operating in one of Lexington’s most visible indoor youth sports venues of the last two decades, has announced it is vacating its premises as the building’s owners prepare for a potential sale.
“We started September of 2018 under a certain deal with the owners of the building,” KBC Hoops co-founder and CEO Tom Bower said. “But their situation’s changed and when their situation changed, our situation changed, and it was tough to keep up because we’re a business that’s less than 2 years old. Financing requires going to get partners and that takes time.”
Bower, who had been senior sports director for KBC Hoops’ predecessor, the Kentucky Basketball Academy, from 2011 to 2016 and returned in 2018 to lead the new management group, said Saturday that his partners had been working on a deal to buy the site when the pandemic hit and the economy essentially shut down.
As KBC’s negotiations stalled with their financing on hold, another interested party came along with plans to possibly convert the building into a storage facility, Bower said. On Friday afternoon, Bower got the final word to vacate the building with the other deal on the table.
“The owners of building have been great trying to make it work,” Bower said.
Bower and his partners remain optimistic about their plans for the next KBC Hoops and have received an outpouring of support since he announced on social media on Friday that KBC would have to relocate.
“I don’t want people to think this is any kind of funeral or we went out of business because we ran out of money or are bad at business or anything like that,” Bower said. “It’s just circumstance after circumstances and there’s no hard feelings towards anyone. We’re even more excited about the future and building a new place.”
KBC held a small, impromptu open house on Saturday before clearing out.
“It was sad when I got the news saying it was going to shut down, because I remember coming here when I was in seventh or eighth grade,” said Chris Lofton, a Mr. Basketball winner at Mason County who went onto star at Tennessee and as a pro overseas. Lofton is part of the KBC partnership group and has worked out here in the offseason for years. “This is like my second home. It’s difficult and sad, but God always has a better plan for us and, hopefully, Tom and Julius (King) can get this (new) building done and start new and start fresh.”
Scott Chalk, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s state championship winning coach, was among those to stop by.
“I was coaching at Frankfort High before this (facility) came about and you didn’t have any central place in the summer where you had the option to have everybody together. I can remember when it opened, it was just so special,” Chalk said. “The excitement of that and the opportunity to have events where you had all teams, all fans, all the people in one place — there was nothing like it. … And then on top of that, the way they’ve been willing over the years to help local teams out with practice and things like that. … It’s special. And I’m hoping we’ll be able to have something to replace it before too long because it’s something the community needs.”
“This is the place where I learned how to play the game of basketball since I was 8 years old,” said Taylor Barnette, a Lexington Christian Academy and Belmont University alum and graduate assistant on the University of Louisville staff. “I’d always come back here every summer when I was in college. I worked out here, played pickup ball here. I’ve won state championships in this place … lifelong friendships. This place means the world to me. It’s really sad that it’s coming to an end in this building, but the name, the brand is obviously going to continue for generations.”
Bower and co-founder and COO Julius King have ambitions plans for a new building and have the backing of partners who include Lofton and fellow Mason County legend and Kentucky star Darius Miller in addition to Marcellus Barksdale and Louis Hairston.
“We along with our partners, the KBC staff and family are proud of what we built over the last two years,” King said in a statement. King offered regrets that he couldn’t be present Saturday in Lexington, choosing to instead support the Black Lives Matter movement at home in Cincinnati this weekend during this troubling time. “We have always taken pride in the fact that an African American man and a white man could come together, work as team, become a family and have a high level of success. KBC has brought an amazing platform to the state of Kentucky hoops and has become one of the hottest brands in the country promoting basketball events. This is not a goodbye but a see you soon message.”
Other tenants
Also displaced by this move are the Lexington United Volleyball club and DiNardo Sports, a strength and conditioning personal trainer for young athletes, who each subleased from KBC.
“It’s kind of a funny feeling. We went in and took out all of our stuff out of KBC. It’s been in there for 10 years,” said Chris Beerman, whose LUV has called the building home since its founding. “It’s just really a strange feeling to know that’s just going to be a storage facility.”
With youth sports beginning to open back up, Beerman has organized sold-out camps and clinics at other venues. He has not found a new home for the select club yet, but he has time before team tryouts begin in late fall.
“I’m looking at some places that are actually really good opportunities but I’ve got to close the deal,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding the right place.”
KBC was also home to volleyball tournaments including the massive high school preseason Bluegrass State Games event each August.
Mark DiNardo of DiNardo Sports already has a temporary agreement to continue his business using space at Lex Fitness near National Avenue and is looking at a permanent site off Richmond Road to reopen as early as August, he said.
“After kind of getting over that first shock, I’m excited for things to come,” DiNardo said. “I’ll have a larger space and I’m going to be working with Alpha Performance (Volleyball) and that new club. And I’ll also be able to reach more athletes with the larger space that I’ll have. One door shuts, and you’ve got to look for the positive. I think this will ultimately work out well.”
Owners’ perspective
The building’s owners, brothers Steve and Terry Hatton, have had huge success with indoor theme park Malibu Jack’s. That business has also been shuttered due to the pandemic. The Hattons built the basketball facility in 2001 and operated it themselves for nearly a decade before leasing it out.
“We’ve done everything imaginable to try to keep it the way it is because we loved it and that’s why we built it,” Steve Hatton said. “We’ve done everything we can and Tom really has done everything he can. He’s tried his best and he’s great at what he does, but the reality is the COVID-19 — nobody can overcome that from a youth sports facility that was struggling already. There’s no way to say we’re not going to make any money for six months, eight months, a year. Who can survive that?”
This weekend’s move follows a three-year legal battle the Hattons had with the building’s former management company, KBA Sports, which operated the venue as the Kentucky Basketball Academy from 2009 to 2018 but struggled to pay rent or come to a buyout agreement in its final years. A court ordered KBA out in June of 2018 and Bower and King took over under a new deal with the Hattons as the Kentucky Basketball Commission three months later.
Youth sports, especially indoor sports, will be under a number of restrictions when they are allowed to resume in Kentucky on June 15. Basketball will then be able to hold small skills sessions, but it is among the sports that have not had a date set for when they can resume playing games.
Prime venue
KBC’s building has seen numerous high-profile summer basketball events over the years that have drawn top players and college recruiters to Lexington. A 9-year-old LeBron James Jr. played in a 2014 AAU event there with his famous dad in attendance.
Last year, KBC was part of bringing The Basketball Tournament, a $2 million dollar winner-take-all cash prize summer event, to Lexington, featuring current and former NBA players. Lexington was an early-round site and KBC sponsored its own team in the event.
Bower said his group believes KBC will be better positioned with a better facility with the move.
“My business partners and investors, everybody is relieved that we’re not buying this building and that we’re going someplace else,” Bower said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Bower noted the space had a number of limitations that hurt it for major events, including capacity and parking — problems it will look to solve with a new facility. Bower said he has seen a lot of interest from city leaders who recognize KBC as a community investment.
“Their response and their support for us staying here has really been felt and adds to our confidence that we will have a facility as soon as possible,” Bower said. “We’re gunning for fall of 2021.”
In the meantime, KBC plans to continue to run events in Lexington, Louisville and northern Kentucky and even national events out of state, Bower said. “We will continue to run until the new place is built,” Bower said.
KBC Hoops becomes the second indoor youth sports venue off Reynolds Road to announce a move in the last month. Kentucky Indoor Soccer and Sports owner Richie Walsh has also announced plans to move from the building it has occupied since 2002.
This story was originally published June 6, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
