A 25-acre Sports Complex park planned for southern Post Falls took a big step forward this week when the City Council approved a contract for landscape architect services.

“We’ll get started right away with surveying,” Post Falls Parks and Recreation Director Dave Fair said Thursday.

Early next year, officials will meet with little league organizers, softball groups and other stakeholders to get their input on what they’d like to see at the Sports Complex. The park will be built on a city-owned site on the north side of the Tullamore subdivision, just west of Highway 41.

Over the course of the next year, the firm hired by the city, Michael Terrell Landscape Architecture of Liberty Lake, will perform engineering and geo-technical surveys, as well as hold public hearings as part of the $98,756 contract awarded by the city.

Fair said construction of the park is expected in 2021-22 and the Sports Complex should be ready for ballplayers by the spring of 2023, after the grass matures.

Once completed, the Sports Complex will boast four baseball fields and four soccer fields, support amenities such as parking and restrooms, and house a maintenance building and a possible concession area.

Fair said the softball fields are the priority because of a “steady demand” for such a use. Post Falls doesn’t have tournament-ready fields available after the closure of the private Quad Park several years ago.

“We want the new complex to be easy to maintain and able to handle a large volume of use,” Fair said.

The landscape and architecture services are being paid for through the city’s park impact fees, which are assessed to new construction projects to support city services and infrastructure.