Majestic Park takes shape
The Majestic Park five- field baseball complex project is underway — ahead of its construction schedule and already scheduling multiday tournaments for 2022.
The complex, located at the former site of the Boys & Girls Club of Hot Springs, is funded by the proceeds from an $8.5 million bond issue city voters approved on Sept. 10, 2019. The groundbreaking for the project was Aug. 14, 2020. Its contracted completion date is Sept. 1, but General Manager Derek Phillips says the project is “slightly” ahead of schedule.
As “prep work” on the site draws to completion, and fence lining and dugout locations start to become clear, Phillips said dugout and concession stand structures will begin to rise in the next six weeks.
“What I’ve been doing is a lot of planning for when the park opens,” he said. “Scheduling all sorts of tournaments for youth tournaments, high school tournaments, college tournaments. Our first major tournament here is scheduled
for February 2022. Feb. 4, 5 and 6, and it’s a college tournament; we’ve got eight college teams coming to town.”
Between college and high school tournaments, Phillips said they have games scheduled from the first weekend in February through mid-July, with about two weekends off during that time.
In addition to planning tournaments, he said he has been making plans to bring the community baseball league back that the Boys & Girls Club once had.
“You know, I think a big part of the community side of it is the league that was lost,” Phillips said. “So bringing that back for kids to play ball again here in a recreational, open-type format, I think it’s just so important for our kids here. When that league was lost, kids didn’t re
ally have a place to just sign up and play ball. They could only play travel ball, which is real competitive, and fairly expensive.”
“The Boys & Girls Club ran that league for, gosh, as long as I can remember. I ran it in ‘02, and it had been around for a while before I ran it. … It was a Babe Ruth, Cal Ripken league. Might have been little league for a little bit, and it was just the league for the kids in Hot Springs to sign up and play recreational baseball. … And you know that went away when the club closed and nobody ever really picked up the pieces until now, thank goodness.”
With the help of a $250,000 Arkansas Outdoor Recreation grant the project received in December, Majestic Park will match the funds and be able to add a playground and a few other things taken out of the original plans to stay within budget.
Phillips said the playground will be connected to the adjacent Greenway Trail, further strengthening community ties to the park.