An 11.5-acre soccer park planned for Kapa'a will open more space for youth and adult leagues and provide a home field for the local high school.

The Kaua'i County park will have two regulation-sized soccer fields along with practice areas, a comfort station, a walking path and paved parking lot, with large trees providing shade and shelter.

The park has been designed, and officials at the Parks Division of the Department of Public Works hope the county will budget the remaining $2 million needed to construct the fields to serve a growing community of about 16,000 residents, the island's second-largest population center.

The project won't come soon enough for the Kapa'a High School soccer teams, which have to play all their home games at Vidinha Stadium in Lihu'e, a 25- to 30-minute drive, or even farther away in Hanapepe.

"We were hoping to have it available this season," said boys varsity coach Kevin Cram. Some of his players live in the north shore communities of Kilauea, Hanalei and Ha'ena, and it takes them 40 to 45 minutes just to drive to Kapa'a, he said.

Finding adequate practice space at the high school and nearby parks also is a challenge, according to Cram.

The triangular-shaped property proposed for the soccer park is now just a pasture. It is bordered by Mo'ikeha Canal to the south, a cane-haul road to the north, and residences and businesses to the east.

Across the canal from the planned park is the 18-acre Kapa'a New Park with baseball, softball and football fields, tennis and basketball courts and other facilities. Ideally, the two parks will be joined by a footpath over the canal, said planner Mel Nishihara of the Public Works Department.

He said the county also is working with the community on "self-build" improvements to Kapa'a New Park that would include bleachers for the football field and locker rooms.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.