City of Janesville Won't Add More Parking, Lighting at Youth Sports Complex

In 1996, the city of Janesville purchased 45 acres on South Wuthering Hills Drive for the Youth Sports Complex. In 1998, the city added another 55 acres east of South Wuthering Hills drive.

The four youth sports groups that lease the facility from the city are: The YMCA of Northern Rock County, Janesville Youth Football, Rush S.C. Rock Soccer Club, and the Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association.

In their leases with the city, each organization bears some responsibility for maintenance and field improvements. The city’s lease with the Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association says it is responsible for maintaining all fields, fences, scoreboards and outdoor lighting, and for fundraising to pay for maintenance and improvements.

In October of 2023, at a special city council meeting regarding capital improvement projects, concerns were raised about lighting and parking at the complex. Council members and city staff agreed to complete a parking analysis and to discuss current parking and lighting needs with groups that use the site.

City parks staff subsequently met with the groups, while city engineering staff completed a parking analysis of the east side of S. Wuthering Hills Dr.

In June 2024, city engineering interns took parking counts in parking lots during weekday league games and on one weekend during a 100-team tournament, at a time of year when softball and baseball overlapped.

During this time, they found that many open parking stalls remained.

In late June, the Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association hosted an unusually large tournament, significantly exceeding the 60-80 teams that typically participate in tournaments on the site, and significantly exceeding the number of people present and the number of vehicles typically parked on the site for a tournament.

A large number of motorists, it was observed, chose to park on the grass surrounding the complex. While this may have been convenient, there was at the time more than enough parking available across South Wuthering Hills Drive, which could have easily accommodated the vehicles parked on the grass, city staff said.

There are also safety measures in place for those who park across the street, notably a signaled crosswalk connecting the east and west sides of the complex

Ultimately, city staff recommended no lighting upgrades be made to the parking lots, and recommended that the parking lots not be expanded at city expense.

City Parks Director Cullen Slapack said adding parking would be a matter of convenience, not necessity, as there is already adequate parking at the complex.

Slapack said the city could add 37 paved stalls on the east end of the Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association side of the complex, at an estimated cost of $100,000 to $115,000. However, Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association representatives have said the organization is fine with leaving the areas as grass, for overflow parking.

User groups have identified some needs, including that the two main parking lots on the east and west sides will need to be resurfaced in the next five years, at an estimated cost of $545,000 for both.

On the west side of the Youth Sports Complex, city staff recommended adding an additional solar-powered street light to the northwest corner of the main parking lot. City staff are also going to continue to review changing the traffic flow to one-way in the parking lot.

City Council President Dave Marshick suggested installlng yellow flashing lights similar to those on Main Street near the Olde Town Mall in downtown Janesville.

Council member Heather Miller said field lighting needs to be addressed and she questioned whether that was discussed at meetings with user groups.

Slapack responded that field lighting has not been a top priority, while fixing the turf on the fields is.

Miller said the city is not maintaining amenities it already has but rather, putting money into building new amenities.

“I don’t understand why we can’t prioritize our community kids, and I’m seeing this as a pattern. We’re not making it better,” she said. “We’re not helping those user groups. Instead, we’ll just build something new somewhere else.”

Marshick and council member Larry Squire said Janesville Youth Baseball & Softball Association knows its priorities are and what it needs, and how to raise and spend its funds well.

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