Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of NexusPark in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.
Local officials say they have a “learning curve” on how to handle parking for large events at NexusPark after a wrestling tournament and softball tournament across the street at Hamilton Center jammed up parking in the area, including at nearby businesses not involved with the events.
The weekend of Oct. 5 and 6, NexusPark hosted a wrestling tournament, while nearby Hamilton Center hosted an adult softball tournament with more than 60 teams. Parking filled up near the Circle-K Fieldhouse, resulting in attendees cramming RVs and campers into the private parking lots of businesses adjacent to NexusPark.
“It’s a learning curve as we’re going through this,” said Columbus Parks Director Mark Jones. “But we also do debriefs on all this, all of our events. …Like for the Hospice concert, we even worked with transit to have some shuttles. We didn’t think we needed that for this past weekend, so we’ll do a debrief.”
“It’s kind of a good problem to have,” Jones added. “It was busy. All the restaurants inside NexusPark, Dunham’s, all the retail … were completely full. So, it was a really good weekend for Columbus.”
Jones said some construction on the southside of NexusPark that is expected to be completed by the end of the year will open up more parking spots at the facility.
Jones said NexusPark currently does not have any rules on campers and RVs but “that’s something we’re going to have to definitely take into consideration as we’re moving forward with these bigger events.”
“I know we had some campers across the street for the adult softball tournament,” Jones said. “…That’s definitely on our list to … communicate to the participants, families coming in, if they do have an RV, where can they park, so we can logistically start planning it out for people.”
