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QUINCY, ILL. -- January 8, 2010

Locals from the Quincy area now have a place to practice their skills.

The River City Sports Academy off North 24th Street is now open to the public. What used to be a storage facility is now a 23,000 square foot sports instruction facility.

Today, dozens of families took the tour, some even trying out the new equipment.

Co-owner Mike Giles says there's a space for everyone.

December 31, 2010

The building at 2011 North 24th in Quincy used to be a storage facility, it will soon become a 23,000 square foot sports instruction facility called River City Sports Academy.

River City Sports Academy Co-owner Mike Giles said, "Once we get finished we'll have 6 full batting tunnels, we'll have pitching machines, we'll have two infields."

And a weight room. Giles says the River City Sports Academy will have some of the top instructors in the area as far as developing athletes, getting them bigger, faster and stronger. There will be six male instructors for baseball and five female for softball. Now it may seem like this facility is all for those two sports, but it will also offer something called Momentum sport specific training. Which means...

Giles said, "Soccer, baseball, football, swimming, if someone wants to get faster and stronger, we got that."

Not only will this facility offer training to young athletes in any sport, it will also hold camps as well as recreational and competitive adult wiffle ball.  That is once it's finished.

Giles said, "We've been in here over a month so far and it's been anywhere between 12 and 18 hour days, just trying to get up from where we started. It's definitely not the prettiest building, but if you want to get better, this is the place to be."

Giles says facilities and instruction like this are available in St. Louis, Springfield and even Ottumwa, Iowa.

Giles said, "We figured we'd put something in where people can come during the winter when it's cold and they're not doing anything else. They can come get their reps and continue getting better and make our sports programs throughout the area better throughout the year."

There will be an open house at the River City Sports Academy Saturday, January 1st from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM at 2011 N. 24th St in Quincy.

Co-owner Mike Giles says the facility will not be completely done, but is hoping to finish up very soon.

A second open house will be held the following Saturday, January 8th.