QPlex design going through revisions

QUINCY — With groundbreaking scheduled for 2027, Quincy Valley Parks District board members are working on finalizing a design for the Quincy QPlex.  

Board chair Andrew Royer said the plan has evolved from the original concept and is still evolving. 

“Nothing is set in stone at this point. We're still in that refinement process,” Royer said. “We're working with the architects and the project manager consistently to keep refining it. It's helping us refine functionality (and) cost and also long-term sustainability.” 

The parks district was formed in 2023 and includes the cities of Quincy and George and the unincorporated areas in the Quincy School District boundaries minus the section in Douglas County. It will own the QPlex, which was, and is, envisioned as a fieldhouse to provide indoor recreation space for Quincy residents and beyond and a venue for tournaments. 

The building will be in Quincy’s Lauzier Park and will have a turf field and walking track on one side of a central atrium. The other side will have hard surface courts that can be converted for basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and pickleball, among other sports.  

“The last design that we discussed at our meeting had the turf side (at) regulation width, but slightly shorter than regulation football or soccer length,” Royer said. “The field side still has the elevated walking track.”  

Reconfiguration of the turf field would allow more hard courts than originally planned. 

“That has a ton of flexibility, because the current iteration would have four basketball courts, which can be converted to eight volleyball courts, which could be converted to 16 pickleball courts,” Royer said. “Then, also, those could be converted to wrestling – put down the wrestling mats and have the wrestling facility as well. The atrium between has the multipurpose flex rooms, offices, restrooms, concessions, all that.” 

The original plan included a fabric membrane exterior, but that’s been switched out in favor of a metal building. 

“We moved (in that direction) for cost, sustainability, functionality – a lot of different aspects went into that,” Royer said. “Really, as we went through to the design phase and realized what this building could be, the steel structure made more sense than the membrane, because it's going to allow us to do more with the space.” 

The new Quincy Aquatic Center in East Park required the relocation of the city’s only lighted softball field. City officials planned to move the field to Lauzier Park and Royer, who’s a member of the Quincy City Council, said that’s still the plan.  

Lauzier Park has some undeveloped property within its boundary, and Quincy city officials are planning to add more recreation opportunities to that park, Royer said. 

With more development coming, the QPlex building has evolved to fit the space available to it while offering maximum flexibility, he said. 

“The first iteration was a super long, narrow building, and now it’s more kind of rectangular,” Royer said. “We’re moving the elements around to fit and (use) the parcel as efficiently and functionally as possible.”  

The idea behind the QPlex was to provide both recreation opportunities for Quincy-area residents and a venue for tournaments that would attract business from out of town. And Royer said that’s still the goal. 

“The economic impact, for the community hub, the multi-generational aspects, the regional presence, the engagement with the community and the region, the economic impact for hotels and restaurants and different things like that, for regional tournaments,” he said. “It's just all around a really exciting project.”