In an area with hundreds of youngsters playing everything from soccer, rugby, lacrosse, softball and baseball, the number of fields available for athletics is lacking.

There is some potential relief in sight with the Summit Park facility in Maple Valley, which was recently approved by the City Council, and Covington’s Community Park, but both face one major hurdle — a lack of money.

That problem can now be tackled in Maple Valley. The staff received the thumbs up July 12 from the City Council on the final master plan for Summit Park.

According to the city’s Parks and Recreation Director Greg Brown, the plan was the culmination of a lengthy process.

“We developed a stakeholders committee made up of 15 different organizations,” Brown said. “That involved local sports organizations as well as community organizations such as the Economic Development Council, the (Maple Valley-Black Diamond) Chamber of Commerce, the (Greater Maple Valley) Community Center… as well as three community members at large.”

The committee, Brown explained, was “taking the direction of ‘What do we want to build on the site and how do we want to build it?’ What ended up out of this is not necessarily a sports complex, but more of a community park with sports features on it. It provides elements that members of the community within a one to two mile radius would come and use.”

A pair of plans were brought to the committee after they went through the programming phase — discussion of what exactly should be built on the 22.75 acre property — and the committee chose one that, “captured more of the design elements in this one versus the other one,” Brown said.

From there, the plan was developed further and with more detail, and during the course of development of the final plan there were two public forums as well as five separate presentations to the City Council.

Maple Valley bought the property from the Tahoma School District in 2006 with the idea that it would be developed into ball fields. Covington does not yet have any city owned fields and Maple Valley has one, Patrick’s Field at Lake Wilderness Park, yet roughly one-third of each city’s population is under 18.

And hundreds of those children participate in sports through a variety of community athletic organizations.

The final master plan includes fields those young athletes can use, Brown said, with a pair of rectangular fields that will be lit and be synthetic turf so they can used year round for soccer, lacrosse, football, rugby and anything else that could be played on a rectangular field.

In addition, there will be two lit youth baseball/softball fields that will have synthetic infields and outfields, also allowing for year round use.

“The full plan also includes some other community elements that we think are critical,” Brown said. “There are three access points into the park directly from the neighborhood that are already in place. There are informal areas with natural grass… where you can throw the Frisbee, play with your kids.”

Once the park is fully built out, which will happen in three phases, there will be tennis courts, basketball courts, trails and even outdoor ping pong tables.

“Originally it was going to be wall to wall sports fields, but, the stakeholder group has really shaped this to be a community park that will have something for all ages,” Brown said.

Not to say there weren’t other challenges in designing the project.

“This is a tough site to design,” Brown said. “One it has limited access. The main parcel is land locked. When you only have one way in and out, you have to design it a certain way.”

Second is the fact that the Bonneville Power Administration has overhead lines and a 375 foot easement that covers a significant chunk of the property.

“The BPA restrictions (cover) roughly a third of the site,” Brown said. “So, we tried to maximize as much as we could in the other two-thirds. For example, the light towers for the soccer/lacrosse fields will be at the end of the fields instead of (at both) the ends of the fields and the sides of the fields.”

And as part of the design, Brown added, “we strategically placed those features with future BPA expansion in mind,” because BPA could add more overhead lines though its representatives have told the city there are no plans to do so any time soon.

Another challenge in planning the property was to keep in mind that properties to the north or west aren’t developed, but likely will be in the future.

“Good planning incorporates future uses, but it also limited a little bit what we could do,” Brown said.

The next major challenge will be paying for construction, which will occur in three phases, with parks and recreation staff already working on getting a state Recreation and Conservation Office grant for the first phase before the master plan was approved.

If Maple Valley receives RCO funds, it would be a matching grant up to $500,000, but Brown said it will be a competitive process with hundreds of applicants vying for limited state funds.

“We had to start that grant application before the master plan had even been adopted assuming the timing would all match up,” he said. “Funding then comes hopefully from a combination of state, county and local grants that we can apply for … as well as city funding from a variety of sources.”

The biggest piece, if the City Council decides to take this approach, would be a voter approved bond issue.

This would be the first of a series of historic moves for the city, Brown said, as Maple Valley has never put out a voter-approved construction bond nor has it ever run a sports and recreation facility of this size.

That decision will come later this year.

If a bond to cover the entire cost of the project is put to the voters, Brown said, Maple Valley residents who own a $300,000 house would pay about $80 per year to pay off the debt.

“It’s contemplated that the first phase, if everything continues to go along well, would be built sometime in 2011 or possibly 2012,” Brown said. “Phase one (will cost) approximately $8.5 million. That includes construction, soft costs, permitting. All of these numbers are 2011 construction numbers.”

Funding is also a major hurdle for Covington to clear as it moves forward slowly on its first large recreation site, community park, according to Scott Thomas, the city’s Parks and Recreation director.

“The Covington Community Park planning process is moving along, although with some bumps in the road due to the economy,” Thomas said in an e-mail.

As in Maple Valley, the Community Park in Covington went through a master planning process, with the concept plan adopted by the Covington City Council in February 2009.

A computer aided design was created from the concept plan and staff presented a 30 percent site plan to the council in January.

“The design process has continued as we pursue permits and evolve the drawings to the 60 percent stage,” Thomas said. “Challenging issues in this process include budget cuts and wetland permitting. Our design work has slowed down due to the economy. Parks capital improvement funds have been shifted from this project to help compensate for losses to the city’s operating budget. We are proceeding with design on a limited basis to keep the permit process moving forward and to pursue grant funding.”

Like his counterpart in Maple Valley, Thomas is also “deeply engrossed in applying for construction funding grants.”

“We intend to use funding from six grant sources to build the first phase of the project,” Thomas said. “If we are awarded all of the grants, the first phase of construction will include portions of the community trail system and a full-size multi-purpose grass sports field.”

Thomas said the city staff will learn about grant rankings and awarding of funds in late August all the way through May 2011 when the state Legislature sets the budget.

“If all goes well, we will bid the project next summer and complete construction in October 2011,” Thomas said. “The trails would be open next fall and the sports field would be ready to host soccer and community events in summer 2012.”

In just a few years, Covington and Maple Valley could make major strides in efforts to build ball fields, if everything falls into place.