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Jake Sullivan, a former Iowa State University men’s basketball player who was named a third-team Verizon Academic All-American in 2003, has transferred his passion for basketball into his day job, opening a 24,000-square-foot indoor basketball complex in Ankeny called Kingdom Hoops.

The facility, which opened Jan. 16, mainly serves as the new home of the All Iowa Attack basketball program, which Sullivan leads. The All Iowa Attack, which is composed of 30 teams and nearly 300 young athletes, used to have a training facility in Ames, but was forced to look for a new home when a neighboring business expressed interest in expanding.

“So then we found this building, and we kind of stumbled upon it on accident,” Sullivan said, “and I thought this could set up perfect for a big sports complex.”

Sullivan said he signed the lease for the facility a week before Christmas and opened the doors just a few weeks later.

However, getting the lease signed was not an easy task, Sullivan said, and neither was finding the financial support needed to open an indoor basketball complex. Nearly four weeks went by before Sullivan had a home for the All Iowa Attack program, which in the meantime practiced at the home of its president, Ames developer Dickson Jensen.

“The biggest challenge was to finalize the loan, which was a nightmare with the economy,” Sullivan said.

Luckily, the owner of the former warehouse, Bob Flick, decided to finance the entire project.

Now Sullivan has started to focus on the future of Kingdom Hoops, which he said is more than just a home for the All Iowa Attack.

“We are starting to open it up for gym rental, and we are trying to get three more courts in addition to the three that we have,” he said. “And we have a group that is going to build a cafe that will be open when it’s busy in here, for tournament weekends and stuff. Then the goal is to maybe find a sports orthopedic group that will come in and potentially take the offices up front, and then maybe a fitness center to attach to the building. The bigger plan is to have this become a full sports recreational fitness complex.”