Millions of dollars are being spent at local businesses in Elgin because of efforts to attract various sporting events including softball tournaments and the latest on the list, a professional women’s softball team moving its home to the Kane County city.

Momentum is building so that plans are being made for a new stadium in addition to the existing Elgin Sports Complex.

The announcement of the Chicago Bandits moving from Lisle to the softball stadium at Judson University is the latest move in a continuing effort by local government officials and business people to make Elgin a regional center of sports activity.

The Bandits, the city of Elgin and Judson University announced in late November that the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) franchise will play its home games for the next three years in a $350,000 renovation of Judson field while it waits for the city to build a stadium, which it expects to be ready by 2011.

The renovations at Judson, to be paid for by the city, will include seating for 2,000 people. In Lisle the team said it was averaging about 1,000 fans for each game. The changes to Judson field will also include a new field, new dugouts and a press box.

“Elgin is thrilled to bring professional softball to the city,” said Mayor Ed Schock. “We’re excited to see this build into something much larger.” He explained that turning Elgin into one of the largest softball venues in the state has become one of Elgin City Council’s top priorities for the next five years.

The city began its official affiliation with softball this past summer by hosting the Regional Senior Softball Tournament in August. More than 84 teams and 6000 people from around the Midwest came to Elgin before tournament winners headed to Las Vegan for the equivalent of the senior softball Olympics.

Fast pitch softball is of great interest to people, according to the mayor. Last year, Elgin was the host city for nearly 36,000 people here for various fast pitch tournaments. “We think we are filling a niche.”

About $4 million was spent by people visiting the city this year, according to Elgin Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) President and CEO Kimberly Bliss. They stayed at local hotels, ate at restaurants here and filled up their gas tanks. Those expenditures also have an impact on the companies which supply the hotels, restaurants and gas stations, she noted.

The activity for 2007 included the Senior Softball USA Regional Tournament in August and the American Fastpitch Association Girls’ 14 and Under National Softball Tournament in July.

Bliss said attracting various types of sports events can take two, three, four and five years to bring to fruition because tournament directors schedule events for years into the future. CVB people have attended trade shows around the country and throughout the course of the year with the specific goal of bringing additional tournaments to the region and making tournament directors aware of what the Elgin area has to offers in regards to facilities.

The Chicago Bandits will be another example of putting Elgin in the spotlight and attracting thousands more people to the city, according to Bliss.

The Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce is also excited about the increased opportunities for local businesses brought to the area by the Bandits and other sports teams, said Mike O’Kelley, vice president of economic development for the chamber.

Judson Director of Athletics Nancy Smith said, “Thank you to the city of Elgin for trusting Judson and giving us a chance and for spending the time to make this work. I want to thank Mike Powers (a member of the city council) for putting his heart and soul into this project. He has been so passionate to make this happen.” She also thanked the Bandits for investing in Judson.

Powers, who is the owner and president of an advertising business called Redlands Communications in Elgin, pointed out that the city could not have gotten this start with the Chicago Bandits without the help of Judson University.

The new city stadium, which will have a seating capacity of about 4000 to 4500 people, will be built on the current Spartan Meadows golf course and be contingent on the Highlands Golf Course being finished across McLean Blvd., according to Powers.

The Elgin City Council has not approved the stadium yet, but he said preliminary ideas for an estimated $6 million project include a couple of restaurants and a mini golf course. If the completion of the new golf course is slow, Powers said the opening of the new stadium could be pushed beyond 2011. “Having the Bandits play at Judson field for a few years will help us get our feet wet.”

Bandits general manager and principal owner Bill Conroy said the move is something that has been in the works for more than a year. The team looked at Downers Gove and Bolingbrook as well as Elgin.

Conroy, who is a senior partner in Hi-Tech Solutions in Oak Brook, said the franchise’s previous relationship was a good one while the team played the last three years in Lisle at Benedictine University. But the Benedictine athletic fields are co-owned by the Village of Lisle. So, the Bandits had to share dates with the Dragons, a summer collegiate baseball team.

“We wanted to find our own venue and it made sense to start building our fan base in Elgin now,” Conroy explained that in Lisle the Bandits tried to appeal to the suburbs as a whole, but in Elgin the marketing strategy will change some. “In Lisle we targeted everybody in the suburbs. Here, it’s more of a community feeling and we’re going to target the Elgin area more.”

He said the tradition-rich area of Elgin should embrace new entities who show they truly are here for the community. The Bandits will work with high schools, colleges and travel ball program in the area to promote not only the Bandits, Elgin and Judson, but the sport as a whole.

Conroy also noted that the Bandits are negotiating a deal with Comcast SportsNet and that the NPF is hoping to be able to steam games live on the Internet in 2008.

The Bandits, which finished last in the six-team NFP with a 23-21 record last season, will open the season at Rockford on May 28 and then play the home opener in the 28-game schedule on June 6 against Akron.