Our community’s need for outdoor recreational activity space has exceeded the capabilities of current offerings. Due to our area’s seasonal weather conditions, school fields and most park fields cannot be used for organized sports and activities between late fall and early spring. Practice and gameplay can only be scheduled during daylight hours, which is also limited during this timeframe.

In this proposed project, SPS and Parks would work in consultation with neighborhood stakeholders to identify locations throughout the city for all-weather fields with practice lighting that would serve students within each of SPS’s high school boundaries. Rectangular fields would support SPS student sport opportunities for soccer, football, lacrosse and other activities, while turf infields would be installed for baseball and softball. This would allow Parks to program evening and weekend activities for community use. Parks and SPS will collaboratively coordinate field citywide maintenance to improve maintenance efficiency.

SPS and Parks have currently identified several field locations to potentially serve the five SPS high school feeder pattern communities. Final locations would be determined with neighborhood input. Potential locations include:

• North Central’s athletic field
• Rogers’ athletic field
• Harmon Park (could serve Rogers High School)
• Dwight Merkel Sports Complex (will serve Shadle Park High School)
• Lewis & Clark’s Hart Field
• Ferris’ athletic field
• Southeast Sports Complex (could serve Ferris or Lewis and Clark High School)

This proposal will be considered by the SPS Board of Directors, the Spokane Park Board, and the Spokane City Council, who will determine which projects may be included in future ballot measures presented for voters' consideration.