Teams visiting PSU without hotel options in Pittsburg

By: Riley Wagner

PITTSBURG — For a college town with competitive athletics, Pittsburg sees a lot of college teams come and go. Rarely, however, does it see them stay overnight. 

The problem isn’t a shortage of hotel rooms. Instead, it’s a lack of meeting space within the city’s hotels that visiting teams would need for things such as pre-game meetings.

As a consequence, money that would otherwise be going into the Pittsburg community—potentially hundreds of hotel nights each year—is instead flowing to nearby cities such as Joplin.

More than a place to sleep

Pittsburg State University teams know how picky visiting teams can be because they’re often in the same position. When the football team, for instance, hits the road, it looks for specific things within the town they are traveling to for a game.

Pitt State football director of operations Ashleigh Grimes said there are certain things teams like hers can’t do without.

“When looking into a hotel for us to stay at, I look at a number of things,” Grimes said. “We always stay in convention centers if they’re available. Where is the hotel? How far away from the stadium is it? Do they have the number of rooms we need available for a one-night stay, and depending on what time the game is, will they allow us a late checkout?”

However, Grimes highlighted that it’s about much more than location.

“Can they accommodate what we need for food and beverages?” she said. “I look into the meeting spaces. We aren’t super high maintenance like some schools, but we ask for a total of four meeting spaces if they have them.”

Pittsburg lacks those breakout rooms and conference centers, posing problems for the teams it hosts. 

Smaller towns with bigger options

That Pittsburg is without such facilities may be surprising, as some of its smaller neighbors in Southeast Kansas have what visiting teams say they need.

The city of Parsons, for instance, has a conference center right next to its Holiday Inn Express. The center has 8,000 square feet and three breakout rooms.

Parsons economic development director Jim Zaleski said the conference center has meant a lot to the Parsons community, including by providing accommodations to traveling teams who stay there when playing Labette County Community College.

“The whole purpose of a conference center is to bring people who make money somewhere else and have them spend extended days in your community,” Zaleski said, spending money from home in the city they are visiting.

In addition, the community benefits from having the new space.

“Since being built, [the Parsons convention center] has seen local businesses and industries using it for training purposes, sales training meetings, nonprofit dinners and events, and some weddings,” Zaleski said.

Too much room at the inn

Pittsburg city marketing and communications manager Chris Johnson said that if Pittsburg can attract something similar to what Parsons now has, it would have clear positive effects on the region.

“It’s a good thing,” Johnson said. “It’s bringing dollars into the economy. The benefit from a community standpoint is that it creates jobs, more jobs, and competition for employees. It also brings in sales tax, including hotel sales tax, which is what helps us.”

Still, it’s not just a matter of building new facilities. Having such a space is beneficial only if it is being used steadily — not just once every other week by a traveling team.

“It’s a matter of figuring out where else — late summer, fall, and winter — those months when you look at a conference or convention center, a place like that, which is indoors, for other activities,” Johnson said. “A lot of it, with filling the rooms, is that they have to have stuff to do here.”

There’s also the question of where a new facility would go, as well as who would build and primarily profit from it. One option leaders said has been discussed is north of Pittsburg, in Frontenac, where a new hospital might serve as a draw to hotel and conference center patrons. 

Another is downtown Pittsburg, which would be closer for teams visiting Pitt State and drive money into local businesses.

Winners and losers

The irony is that despite the potential benefits to Pittsburg and visiting teams, Pitt State teams could actually face stronger opponents if teams can stay closer to campus.

Just like Ashleigh Grimes, the PSU football teams director of operations said, when traveling, teams prefer to stay in the towns in which they are playing as it makes game days easier. If a team had to travel an hour or so the morning of the game, they would be less rested because they would have had to get up an hour earlier — as opposed to staying in a hotel just five minutes from the stadium.

Football teams such as Emporia State, actually made the drive the day of the game instead of staying in Joplin. According to Trip Shannon who is their director of football operations.

Al McCray, who is the wide receiver coach at Fort Hays State and who books the team’s hotels when traveling, said new hotels built in Hays within the past five years have had a clear benefit for visiting teams who can now stay in the remote western Kansas town. Previously, visiting teams had to stay an hour and a half away in Salina.

When it happens, it happens quickly

Regardless of the impact on Pitt State sports, the ability to host visiting teams would have clear benefits to Pittsburg. Like all good things, such projects take time and long-term planning.

But Chris Johnson said that when something like a convention center comes to Pittsburg, it will come more quickly than people expect.

“You’ve got to think about it like the Plaster Center and the casino,” he said. “It took a long time for those two things to happen. But once the decision was made, it happened pretty fast.”

I think that’s what you’re going to see here,” he continued. “Whether it’s a year, ten years or twenty years, I can’t tell you a time frame. But once you see a developer who’s like, ‘This is what I want to do, let’s do it,’ I think you’ll see it happen pretty fast.”