Springdale eyes unused housing grant money to upgrade Miracle League baseball fields

Stone Vollendorf, 5, gets ready to hit a ball during a game Saturday Sept. 11, 2010 at the Springdale Miracle League fields at Tyson Park. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FILE PHOTO)
Stone Vollendorf, 5, gets ready to hit a ball during a game Saturday Sept. 11, 2010 at the Springdale Miracle League fields at Tyson Park. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FILE PHOTO)

SPRINGDALE -- The city plans to use federal grant money originally designated for home rehabilitation for seniors to replace the surfaces at the Miracle League Park.

The money for the ballpark project will come from $875,000 the city received in 2021 from the Community Development Block Grant Program, administered by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, explained Dean Allen, the city's CDBG program manager.

The federal agency provides the annual grants based on a formula to cities with 50,000 or more residents. The money helps provide good living environments and economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income people, according to the HUD website.

The park -- located on the west end of the Randal Tyson Recreation Complex -- includes two baseball fields and two playgrounds.

Both are adapted and accessible for people with many types of disabilities.

The park still holds its original surfaces, placed 17 years ago when the Springdale Rotary Club built it, said Peggy McCall, who organizes Miracle League programs in Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas.

The city typically has granted nonprofit agencies with some of the housing grant money to support their work. The city also uses the money to upgrade facilities available for use by the general public. The city in 2020 spent $366,017 to install an elevator at the city's Recreation Center. The project also reconfigured the center's front entrance.

And the city over the years has upgraded hundreds of homes for energy efficiency, accessibility and safety.

But explosive development in Northwest Arkansas has left contractors and building supplies harder to access, Allen said. Instead of rehabbing 30 homes a year, the program now completes about 20 and leaves money sitting in the pot.

The city wants to use that excess money to replace the Miracle League field surfaces. This will require a formal transfer of the $300,000 in federal dollars, Allen said.

Federal regulations require a published announcement of the plan to change, a public hearing and approval by the federal housing agency, he said. The City Council approved the shift of money and ballpark project in June, he said.

The original rubberized surfaces were laid in 2-foot tiles that lock together. The surfaces are cushioned to help prevent fall injuries, McCall said.

Winter weather over the past few years has not been kind to the fields, McCall said. The tiles have been frozen, shrunk and pulled apart. Individual tiles were replaced until no more replacements were available, she said.

The 24,000 square feet of the new surfaces will be a closed-loop turf -- more like what is used in putting greens -- that will be rolled on the fields, anchored by padding, McCall said.

McCall said the fields will be replaced on two baseball fields and the smaller of two accessible playgrounds.

The Northwest Arkansas Miracle League sponsors a baseball league for children as young as 4 with a variety of disabilities. Each player has a volunteer "buddy" beside him in the field to help overcome the disability during play. This allows parents to enjoy the games strictly as spectators, McCall said.

The spring games will start in April.


Upcoming Events