The complexes being proposed in Kent County and Middletown are far from carbon copies of each other.

First proposed in 2010, the Kent County Regional Sports Complex, dubbed “The Turf,” will include 13 multi-purpose synthetic turf fields, one dedicated to field hockey, the rest for soccer, lacrosse and other field sports , Strickland said. One of the 13 will be a small stadium, with seating for 1,500. All fields will feature lights and scoreboards.

The complex, to be built on an undeveloped stretch east of Del. 1 just south of Frederica, will be a public-private partnership. It will be funded by a yet-to-be issued $20 million bond from Mamp;T Bank and overseen by a private, nonprofit corporation that Kent County will soon empower to operate the facility, and tax dollars – state infrastructure funding that now stands at $3.24 million, according to Alan Levin, former director of the Delaware Economic Development Office. Kent County will continue to own the land, which it will lease to the nonprofit, and serve as the conduit for the bond money, Strickland said.

The project was launched, Strickland said, when a state tourism official told the Greater Kent Committee that she was having to turn away tournament bids because the state lacked a facility that could handle large tournaments.

The turf playing surface was a deliberate choice, Strickland said.

“If you want to have a tournament venue, go with artificial surface fields,” he said. “Why? Well, think about Firefly, think about Big Barrel, think about Mother Nature, think about grass fields. Think about not only paying a significant entry fee, and think about it being rained out.” Grass gets worn down, and the fields sometimes need to be “rested” to recover, he said.

“Our advantage competitively to anything I’ve seen from Middletown – or any other venue, candidly – what we’ve built our model around is, we’ll be able to guarantee play for a tournament, barring lightning,” Strickland said.

The privately funded, 170-acre Delaware Sports Complex, proposed in April, will be built on an irrigation spray field in the far southwestern corner of Middletown. The complex is planned to have 20 multi-purpose fields, 16 baseball diamonds, five tennis courts and two indoor facilities — the larger being a 160,000-square foot multi-sport room that will be able to fit a World Cup-sized indoor soccer field and three hard courts for volleyball and basketball and, possibly, an indoor track .

Plans also call for a small stadium with bleacher seating for about 2,500. The land will be secured from Middletown on a long-term lease.

The massive complex didn’t begin with a grand design. Lobdell, Brian Ellis and Brian Laity own MTown Sports Complex, a 14,000-square foot indoor sports training facility about a half mile from the proposed Delaware Sports Complex featuring turf fields that can be configured for various sports , as well as for batting cages. Lobdell and Ellis simply wanted to expand at their existing location .

“We knew two weeks in at [MTown Sports] we were too small, because there was such an inundation of people coming in,” Lobdell said. “So over time, we started talking about building a larger indoor facility. … Eventually, it grew into a need for an entire complex.

“We worked with our consultants, and we ran the numbers — and the numbers … worked,” he said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”

The consultants also told the group that including indoor facilities would be critical to making the multi-sport concept work.

“I agree with that 100 percent,” said Don Aselin, executive director of the nonprofit Sportsplex Operators amp; Developers Association, a nonprofit industry advocate. “In Delaware, you still get the bad weather in the winter. Your outdoor facilities are going to sit dormant for a number of months because you can’t maintain them and it’s not safe to play on them. So in order to keep that cash flow going and your operation flowing, you must have indoor facilities.”

Lobdell said there are “plusses and minuses” to using artificial turf.

“Turf is difficult,” he said. “You have to refill the turf with rubber infill, and every 10 years, you’ve got to replace the turf.”

Another downside, he said, is heat. “In the summertime, when it’s hot, the turf literally gets 15 to 20 degrees hotter than grass fields.”

Contact William H. McMichael at (302) 324-2812 or bmcmichael@delawareonline.com. On Twitter: @billmcmichael

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