A local sports investment company continues to make renovations to the Colorado Sports Center in Monument, hoping to increase amateur and club play within the coming years.

Harold Jordan III and Andrew Sherman, of Colorado Springs, along with Michal Neppl, of Monument, bought the center in August, which the former owner was operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Front Range Athletic Association, a limited liability company created by the three men, bought the Colorado Sports Center for $1.45 million, including the property and two buildings, according to El Paso County land records.

They have since completed at least $30,000 in renovations, including upgrades to parking lot security, groundskeeping and locker rooms. The partners have ties to the complex at 16240 Old Denver Road that include operating the facility, coaching youth soccer and hockey teams and running adult hockey programs. The three hope to buy an additional nine contiguous acres of property northwest of the complex by the end of the year, he said.

The 22,000-square-foot rear sports building is used for indoor lacrosse, flag football and soccer. The front building, 32,626 square feet, has an ice rink used for curling, figure skating, hockey and ice skating lessons, Sherman said. The additional acreage at 16440 Old Denver Road, when bought, will be used for administrative offices and equipment storage and, perhaps, commercial space, Sherman said.

“We saw it as a great opportunity to keep a community-based facility moving forward,” he said. “We have a great passion for the community and the programs.”

Sherman and Jordan met in 2005 when they coached hockey at the complex. Neppl was managing the facilities at the time, Sherwin said. The complex offers individual, club, recreational and youth and adult league services in several sports. Jordan said it has about 300 kids and more than 240 adults that participate in the hockey programs. It is also the home of the Colorado Rampage Youth Hockey Club.

Jordan said the number of people using the complex helped persuade him to invest in it.
“I felt if it fell though the cracks,” he said, “what happens to all the kids?”

Sherman played hockey at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology and two years of professional hockey for the N.J. Devils and Philadelphia Flyers minor league teams. Jordan played hockey at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. Neppl, a native of the Czech Republic, has spent decades playing soccer and hockey.

The sports center was originally owned by Colorado Sports Group, which included Raymond Marshall and four others, court documents show. That ownership group listed more than 
$4.1 million in liabilities when it filed for Chapter 11 protection in October 2011.

Sherman said buying the complex out of bankruptcy made it easier to finance its day-to-day activities. He said his group has paid all unsecured creditors owed by the former owners.

That total was about $53,000, according to the men’s attorney, Gary Maceau. That total varies from the original bankruptcy filing documents because of later agreements with unsecured creditors, Maceau said.

“If you look at how businesses are shaped in a reorganization, you can restructure the debt, so you are in the black,” Sherman said, “and the debt service is then in a place where you can make upgrades and improvements and run the business appropriately.”

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Contact Ned Hunter: 636-0275.

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