Catholic Memorial High School purchases Infinity Fields Baseball Park in Waukesha

Catholic Memorial High School is purchasing several baseball fields and an indoor athletic facility to help in its campus expansion efforts.

The Waukesha-based private high school said in a news release that it is acquiring the Infinity Fields Baseball Park in Waukesha, adding 36 acres of outdoor space and a 51,000-square-foot indoor athletic facility to its campus footprint.

The outdoor space includes six baseball diamonds, a concession stand and 8 acres of wetlands. The indoor space currently houses NX Level Sports Performance, which, according to its website, "provides specialized performance training for male and female athletes, middle school through college, and professional athletes in the Waukesha and Mequon, WI areas." The indoor space consists of an athletic facility, including full locker rooms and showers, a practice football turf field, a full-size basketball court that can be used as two full-sized volleyball courts, a weight room, sand pits, batting, pitching and golf cages, the release said.

The school said in its news release the move aligns with one of its strategic plan objectives, which is enhancing the student experience. In addition to athletics, the facility is expected to provide academic opportunities such as access to wetland and ecological space for science classes.

Catholic Memorial High School President Donna Bembenek said in an Oct. 7 email that  the school looks forward to working with Froedtert and NX Level Sports Performance to expand its internship program with the benefit of the facility. The school's internship program currently consists includes opportunities in the biomedical science, engineering, computer science and business fields.

Bembenek said in an Oct. 4 phone interview that the purchase will also allow the school to expand opportunities for its youth sports program. Through the Junior Crusaders program, elementary and middle school students participate in baseball, boys and girls basketball, football and co-ed tennis programs. Participants receive training from Catholic Memorial coaches and players.

"It just made sense for us to consider this as an option," Bembenek said. "We're landlocked at Catholic Memorial. It very much aligns with our strategic plan, and we just saw this opportunity as something unique for our school to expand our campus and to serve our kids, both our current students and our vastly growing youth program."

Bembenek said the school's offer to purchase the property, for $5.3 million, was accepted in September. The deal is expected to close in November.

Bembenek said for the near future, the school will operate the facility "exactly as it operates today" and will work with the village of Waukesha to improve the facility. With improvements, she said the total cost, including the purchase price, will be $8 million.

Currently, the facility is used by Catholic Memorial's varsity and junior varsity baseball and softball teams. The school has also used 5 Diamonds Inc., the current owner of Infinity Fields, to rent the fields for its Junior Crusaders youth baseball program. Youth baseball and softball tournaments, games and practices are also held on the diamonds.

Youth sports tournaments played on the baseball diamonds will continue, Bembenek wrote in her Oct. 7 email. She said the staff of 5 Diamonds Inc. run the tournaments; they have been invited to join CMH staff in continuing to run them.

Bembenek added that NX Level Sports Performance has a lease in the building and will continue with that lease.

"Our students benefit from the facility today, and we look forward to that growing. Brad Arnett, owner of NX Level, approach(es) athletic training very similarly as CMH — with the focus on developing the whole student as a great person first," she said.

"We think there are things like turf fields that would make it more usable, so we'll work with the village to look at turfing the fields and maybe adding some additional fields," Bembenek said.

The school's news release said that the school would add turf fields for baseball and softball as well a multi-use field for the school's soccer, rugby and lacrosse teams, which would allow those teams to have their own home field.

"We're really excited that we're going to be able to provide our student athletes with a higher level training environment, as well as being able to play our competitions there, as well as being able to serve the youth through youth tournaments and things like that. Extremely excited to be a part of that and naturally help manage the coaches, the student athletes, the youth programming that's going to go on over there. It's an exciting time for Catholic Memorial High School," said Catholic Memorial High School athletic director Matt Bergan in a phone interview.

Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Catholic Memorial purchases Waukesha baseball park facility