The city of Spokane will begin construction in September at Mission Park on a baseball field and facility for youth with physical disabilities. 

The overall goal is to make the park the most accessible in Spokane for people with disabilities.

The Mission Park Adaptive Ball Field will be located at 1208 E. Mission on an existing dirt ball field that’s seldom used by the public, says Al Vorderbrueggen, recreation director for the City of Spokane Parks and Recreation Department.

Construction of the new park and its amenities is scheduled to be finished by next spring, Vorderbrueggen says.

Spokane-based Coffman Engineers Inc. is the project engineer. Sports Fields Inc., of Canton, Ga., is the contractor, and the landscape architect, also based in Canton, Ga., is Robert Ryan.

Half the money for the $482,000 project is coming from the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, and the rest is from a state of Washington grant. Private donations also are being solicited for the project, Vorderbrueggen says.

“We’re trying to make this the most accessible park in the city,” he says. “We feel it’s important for all members of the community to have recreational opportunities.”

Vorderbrueggen credits the project to a local mother with a developmentally impaired child who five years ago approached the city about making parks more accessible to those with disabilities. Shortly thereafter, city officials began exploring ways to create the kind of field that will be built soon. 

Eventually, they discovered the Baltimore-based Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. The foundation provides funding to communities as part of its Youth Development Park Initiative and is responsible for helping provide more than 300 communities in 46 states with multipurpose, synthetic outdoor turf facilities for disabled children.

 Here, along with setting up the field, the project will include installing fencing, dugouts, bleachers, a scoreboard, and accessible pathways from the north and south parking lots at Mission Park, he says.

The park will have drop-off provisions and parking in compliance with standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, concrete pathways six feet wide will be constructed leading from the ball field to an existing basketball court.

“Home plate to the outfield fence is only 115 feet, which gives some kids an opportunity to actually hit the ball out of the park,” Vorderbrueggen says.

Says Coffman engineer Tom Arnold, “It’s a great, fun little project for the community. It’s repurposing a little-used area for a really cool purpose.”