PORTAGE | The soccer goal posts aren't in place yet, and there's some grass that's being a little stubborn at growing, but the long-awaited Portage Park Department soccer complex is nearly complete.
The five-field complex, along with a concession/storage/office building, picnic shelter and playground, is set to be dedicated Sept. 6, the first day of the fall park soccer league season.
It's been nearly nine years since it became evident the soccer program in the city was outgrowing the city's fields. Soccer coaches got together in 1999 to plead their case about the need for facilities. However, at a price tag of $1.2 million back then, city leaders put a halt to a publically funded complex.
For a time soccer enthusiasts worked to raise money and volunteered their time to turn the fallow cornfields on the east side of Imagination Glen Park into soccer fields.
Finally in December 2001, a traditional groundbreaking ceremony was held in a muddy field. Still, because of funding, the project lagged.
Several years later, the complex is a reality and has come in under the original cost estimate. Dave Byers, parks department director of sports management, said the cost of the project is somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000.
Some $380,000 came from a 2004 bond issue, and the department received two grants, $200,000 in federal land and water conservation funding and $50,000 from the Save the Dunes Council, for the green roof on the concession building.
The new complex will solve the soccer space problem, Byers said. Some 500 youngsters play park soccer each spring and fall. A few hundred more compete in the youth soccer program and will be able to use the fields. There is also a small warm-up area.
The five fields measure 300 feet by 225 feet and are U.S. regulation size. Because younger divisions often play on smaller fields, portable goals can be used to divide the larger fields for practice and for games. Byers said there will be plenty of room for team practices.
The new complex also will allow the department to rent out the fields for tournaments and other events, he said.
Byers said it has been "extremely important" for the department to provide a separate, dedicated space for the soccer program. Until now the soccer fields were adjacent to the softball complex, which caused occasional parking problems if activities were going on in both areas.
The complex is off Ind. 149 adjacent to the Steel Wheels BMX track and offers access to both the Iron Horse Heritage and Prairie Duneland trails.
The dedication ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Sept. 6 and will include a ceremonial ribbon-cutting. Mayor Olga Velazquez and former Park Superintendent Carl Fisher are scheduled to be on hand for the ceremony.
