Pinnacle: A New Benchmark for Team Success and Community Health

[Editor’s note: As of September 2020, Pinnacle National Development Center is now known as Compass Minerals National Performance Center)

When its ribbon is cut this evening, Pinnacle, the new training home for Sporting KC and the United States Soccer Federation, will officially become the premier home for training and professional soccer coach and referee development in the United States. The $75 million, 50-acre complex features multiple training fields, including a real-time coaching classroom, an outdoor lap pool and an 81,000 square foot training and sports medicine facility. Developed in partnership with Children’s Mercy Hospital, sponsors of Sporting KC’s home stadium, Pinnacle will serve coaches and players at the MLS and national level, in addition to members of the general public.

“Pinnacle provides players and coaches a streamlined training environment and gives the public access to top-tier sports medicine care. It sets the bar for the next generation of professional sports medicine facilities,” said Jon Knight, senior principal at Populous.

A first-of-its-kind collaboration between a professional sports team (Sporting KC), a national sports federation (U.S. Soccer) and a sports medicine provider (Children’s Mercy Hospital). The three-tenant complex will welcome tens of thousands of visitors annually as a premier destination for the development of elite players, coaches and referees of all ages and provide patients with access to first-class practitioners and equipment. Known as the Children’s Mercy Sports Medicine Center, the public facility includes a radiology center, an indoor turf field, basketball court, a gait laboratory and a workout room shared with Sporting KC players.

On the professional team side, Pinnacle’s amenities include locker rooms for U.S. Soccer and Sporting KC, five full-size soccer fields, a cutting-edge sports performance lab featuring cryotherapy and hydrotherapy, an expansive sports performance gymnasium and multiple spaces uniquely specialized for coaching education, including a two-story coaching pavilion, known as the Pitch Lab. Equipped with audio and video technology to capture and enhance on-field instruction, the Pitch Lab significantly improves coaching instruction.

Pinnacle also includes the flexible-by-design Great Hall, which enables the facility to host various events outside of the team calendar including banquets, weddings and other special occasions. Comprised of nearly 3,000 square feet of open space, the Great Hall features a balcony overlooking the main fields, known as the Super Pitch. Operable walls can transform the space into three separate classrooms, opening up the east side of the second floor for continuous event space use.

Pinnacle broke ground in July of 2016, with players and coaches moving into the space in February of this year and the Children’s Mercy Sports Medicine Center completed in April.

“You see the blueprints and the renderings and you have a vision, but seeing it and walking in here, it’s still hard to believe. I’m still amazed every time I walk in here,” said Peter Vermes, coach of Sporting KC.

Pinnacle joins the Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy, Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Sports Science Center and University of Colorado Champions Center as another recent Populous-designed, community facing facility to open in recent years.

For more information, contact:

media@populous.com