Spokane’s outdoor sports community is growing, but our city’s current fields are struggling to keep up.
Between the wet fall and winter seasons and the limited hours of daylight, many fields sit empty when they could be full of student athletes, community leagues, and neighborhood pick-up games. Together Spokane includes a plan to change that.
The proposal aims to provide at least one all-weather rectangular multi-sport field and one turf baseball/softball infield with lighting within each of Spokane’s five high school boundaries. This means better access to year-round fields for students and community members at Ferris, Lewis and Clark, North Central (NC), Rogers, and Shadle Park high schools.
“Right now, we’re turning away middle school kids who want to play baseball,” SPS Superintendent Adam Swinyard said in an interview with KREM at NC on Tuesday. Limited field space and poor field conditions have made it difficult for students to participate in extracurricular sports, leading some parents to drive long distances to find practice locations.
“They’re driving across the county to get their kids to practice,” Dr. Swinyard said. “And then for many of our families, for our single parents, that’s an insurmountable barrier for their students, and then it turns into a no. And a no turns into a kid sitting at home by themselves on a screen.”
The all-weather fields would be built with artificial grass, making them usable throughout the year without the constant risk of being damaged by weather.
“This is a beautiful day, but this field behind me is almost unplayable because of the recent weather,” Spokane Indians Senior Vice President Otto Klein told KREM. Rain-soaked grass fields can quickly become unusable, forcing teams to cancel practices or find alternative spaces—if they can find any at all.
Practice lighting would also be installed at these new fields, extending the hours they can be used safely.
“We need to make the days longer with our field conditions, and then adding lights to a lot of these facilities is going to be a game changer,” Klein said.
Practice lighting isn’t competition-level, meaning it won’t interfere with surrounding neighborhoods, but it will provide visibility for evening practices and activities. Parks and SPS are committed to minimizing light pollution, using state-of-the-art LED technology that directs light only where needed and implementing strict lighting schedules to avoid unnecessary nighttime brightness.
Beyond benefiting school athletics, these fields would also be available for community use when not scheduled for students. That means more opportunities for weekend soccer games, adult softball leagues, and other recreational activities.
A key advantage of this project is efficiency. Instead of maintaining multiple grass fields, which require costly upkeep and irrigation, SPS and Parks can focus resources on fewer, more durable all-weather surfaces.
“If we had a soccer practice or a baseball practice, it could tear up a field enough to where then we have to take it offline again,” Spokane Parks Director Garrett Jones told KREM.
All-weather fields won’t have this issue, allowing them to be used more frequently without worrying about long recovery periods.
Potential locations for these fields include North Central’s athletic field, Rogers’ athletic field, Harmon Park, Shadle Park's athletic field, Dwight Merkel Sports Complex, Hart Field, Ferris’ athletic field, and the Southeast Sports Complex. Final placement would be decided with input from neighborhood stakeholders following a November 5 vote on the SPS bond and Parks levy.
With youth and adult sports participation rising and field availability failing to keep pace, Spokane needs a solution that expands access without adding excessive costs. Creating a citywide system of all-weather, lit fields would give Spokane athletes of all ages a place to play – no matter the season.
To learn more about this proposal and share your thoughts, visit Together Spokane - Fields and Share Your Feedback.