According to Kim Froman, Director of Community Development and Housing, the city is now surveying the land for any environmental issues. Once the sale closes either at the end of May or June, they’ll start to add infrastructure such as water and sewer lines and a parking lot.
They’re also deciding whether to put in sod or turf fields. A bond sale of $975,000 is funding the project, with $371,000 going towards the property acquisition. The remaining money will go toward general improvements, infrastructure and a building for concessions and restrooms, so additional funding would have to come from local donors for the park to have turf fields.
“We're working on some sponsorship packages,” Froman said. “Local businesses that want to represent their support for this project and all that. So that'll be a big ask, but the average cost of a turf field can be anywhere from $600,000 to $1 million.”
The need for public soccer fields in Pittsburg had been made known at city commission meetings for months prior to the project’s approval. Local players and coaches spoke about the growth of the sport in Pittsburg and how challenging it is to find space to practice.
Among them was Eric Muathe, who organizes casual practices for any community members interested in playing. He’d spoken about the issue with the Parks and Recreation Department for several years, but realized the focus needed to shift to the city commission.
Froman was at all but one of the meetings where someone spoke about the need for soccer fields and said the shift in focus helped bring the importance of the issue to light.
“The soccer community is so big and it's growing so much for our citizens here in the community that we would be remiss to not pay attention to that need and that demand,” she said.
Another main point advocates had when speaking to the commissioners was the potential to host tournaments and the economic impact that would have. According to Froman, this was a factor when searching for where the park could be.
“We looked at our industrial parks because that's where we have ample land available,” she said. “However, most of our industrial parks are on the corners of each quadrant in town, so they're not centrally located, so they wouldn't really feed the economic development portion of this.”
The city then looked at a location near Mercy’s land and decided to ask if they could buy it.
“They seemed pretty open to it,” Froman said. “It feeds into their mission, of course, of recreation and health and contributing to their local community, so it was a pretty good partnership.”
Youth teams and other local players currently play wherever they can, but some of the fields become waterlogged when it rains, are uneven and have no lights, according to Muathe.
It’s been over a decade since he first started organizing casual practices for community members. During that time, he’s seen the number of local players grow.
“The numbers are getting even bigger because we have that little bit of an opportunity to go play on a good field, which is the PSU field,” he said. “And the numbers just exploded. People who didn't want to play and injure themselves on an uneven surface are now showing up to play.”
Muathe’s hopes for the fields are that they’re turf and have lights, which would increase the ability to host tournaments.
“We are grateful for the upcoming fields, but our dream to really maximize on the potential and demand and to impact the revenue, would be an upgrade from grass to where we would have turf fields,” he said. “We would be able to host tournaments and schedule them out months, weeks in advance, and people would not mind coming to the area knowing that, more than likely, cancellation is low due to rain and things like that when you have turf fields.”
In addition to the fields, the park will also include a walking trail, and the pond on the property will be open for fishing. Muathe hopes this will push local businesses to support the project.
“Yes, it’s going to serve soccer primarily, but it's also going to serve the entire community,” he said. “This would be an opportunity for any business that wants to put its name out there in terms of just helping the community, and let's be honest, also for advertisement. I think it's a great opportunity to take advantage of.”
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