A 'Team' Effort at Wide World of Indoor Sports

1610 Davisville Road was just a vacant dirt lot back in January. Eight months later, it's now home to the state's newest indoor sports facility.

Wide World of Indoor Sports South held its grand opening Wednesday afternoon, showcasing the facilities 92,000 square feet of space which includes four turf fields, a snack bar, beer and wine bar upstairs and plenty of seating. (Oh, and WiFi.)

The facility is a sister site to the original WWIS in Smithfield, offering youth and adult leagues for a variety of sports (including soccer, flag football, wiffleball, lacrosse and more), tournaments and corporate events. 

At Wednesday's grand opening, one thing was unanimous among the slew of speakers – WWIS journey to Quonset was a team effort. According to Ocean State Business Development President Bud Violet, WWIS was able to secure the site through partnerships with Quonset Development Corporation, BankNewport and the US Small Business Administration. 

Dan Fawcett, co-owner of WWIS, praised QDC for its site-readiness program – which helps speed up the construction process for businesses. 

"We closed [the deal with QDC] on January 21 and began digging the next week," said Fawcett, who added that construction completed in about seven and a half months.

Though many spoke of the team effort to bring WWIS to North Kingstown, Town Councilor Carol Hueston reminded attendees at the grand opening of how the new business has already started to give back to its community. Following the announcement that many school districts would be rescheduling outdoor night games (due to the rise of mosquito-borne illnesses that have sprouted up across the state), WWIS began to offer free practice space to displaced teams.

"They've already proven to be a good neighbor," said Hueston.

Visit WWIS South's website here or call for more information at 401-295-1234.