LR board to vote on bid for soccer-field contract

The Little Rock Board of Directors will vote tonight about whether to award a contract to build four soccer fields near Pinnacle Mountain.

The city’s 2001 parks master plan called for about 18 soccer fields to be built throughout the city to help handle a growing interest in soccer. But some city directors say they should be built as multipurpose fields to accommodate other interests.

“There’s a significant need for soccer fields and for lacrosse fields in Little Rock,” Ward 3 Director Stacy Hurst said. “I hope the parks department will approach this in a way that those fields can be used for multiple sports. We have 300 kids in Little Rock who are playing lacrosse now, and it’s the fastest growing sport in the country. We have such a need for both that it would be unfortunate to exclude either sport from using those fields.”

The contract up for a vote would award $770,000 to Ford Engineering Inc. to build a parking lot, clear four fields and build an entrance drive into Natural Steps Park, off Arkansas 300 near Pinnacle Mountain.

The land was partially deeded to the city by Central Arkansas Water several years ago, and the city has been working on plans to develop and landscape the park. The park will likely include walking, bicycle and possibly horse trails in the future.

The funding for the soccer fields will come from the city’s 2009 bond refinancing and from the capital projects portion of the citywide sales-tax increase that passed in 2011.

Parks and Recreation Department Director Truman Tolefree told the Board of Directors last week that after the soccer fields are built, the Central Arkansas United Soccer Association will help manage the scheduling there. But, he said, the city would consider making it easier for different sports to use the fields as multipurpose practice or game fields.

“The fields would need to be striped using powder; then it’s a little easier to rearrange them for the different sports,” he said. “The major thing that has presented problems in the past is whether sports are congruent with each other. Staff will have to coordinate the use of those fields.”

Hurst said there are only a handful of open-use fields in the city that can accommodate soccer or lacrosse practices, including Murray Park, War Memorial Stadium facilities and Otter Creek facilities. Some private fields near the former Alltel campus in Riverdale will disappear next year when a development approved for the private property is built.

Hurst said she’d like to see some of the green space adjacent to War Memorial Park along Markham Street be used for practice fields.

“We have a lot of kids who are interested in playing lacrosse and soccer,” Hurst said. “We need to start the conversation to take an inventory and do a study about what the demand and future needs will be for sports and for fields in Little Rock. It’s the kind of conversation we need to be having from a planning standpoint because some of those options are disappearing.”