Two long-awaited projects at the city’s Four Corners recreation area are headed toward completion with at least one of them slated to be ready this year.

The Memorial Field remodel will begin in the fall, about the time the city’s skateboard park nears completion. Both projects are within shouting distance at Four Corners, north and south of Garden Avenue near City Park.

The grass at Memorial Field was reseeded and will take time to form a durable layer of sod, said Coeur d’Alene’s Parks and Rec director Bill Greenwood. He has closed the field to softball until next year.

“Which is fortuitous,” Greenwood said.

It will allow contractors to work on the grandstand beginning this fall. The project, including a scheduled $960,000 remodel of the iconic, green shell, should be completed a year from now.

Greenwood said the grandstand’s old-school siding, or a likeness, will remain on the shell as it has for more than a half century.

“I’m not certain what they are going to do for the siding, to keep that historical characteristic that everyone is expecting,” Greenwood said. “But their task is to keep that the way it is.”

The project includes restrooms, a concession area and ADA access.

Once the turf grass is ready next spring, the ballfield will open, and it’s likely the grandstand work will be completed.

A groundbreaking for the city’s $700,000-plus skateboard park is scheduled in June. The contractor should have the plaza-style boarders park completed in September.

Jason Olsen of the North Idaho Skateboard Association said local boarders whose halfpipe activities have been relegated to a small lot along Best Avenue, are patiently awaiting June’s groundbreaking.

Olsen, who has used city skate facilities for a couple decades, said he has pushed for a new park just as long.

The old park, he said, “wasn’t one big unified thought.”

It had been pieced together over the years, Olsen said. When the new park — the group raised around $20,000 toward the effort — is completed in September, it will be comprised of a variety of elements, geared toward all skill levels.

“Over the past 20 years skateboard parks have progressed light years,” he said. “This will be a feather in the cap for the city.”

The recreational campus at Four Corners includes pickle ball and futsal courts, and for an additional $245,000 the Memorial Field plaza will have restrooms and a picnic shelter.