Matthew Phippen brings his fire science students from Spokane Valley Tech to Balfour Park a few times a week so they can play ultimate frisbee in the sun. His program doesn't have a field of its own, so the walk over from campus has become part of the curriculum. "If there are more amenities... I'd for sure say, 'Hey, let's go play basketball today,'" he told the Spokesman-Review this spring, and that one line says more about the park's current state than any press release does. Balfour Park is not one project. It's three, moving at three different speeds, and only one of them is ready for your Tuesday evening right now.
If you've scrolled past a city newsletter or a neighborhood Facebook post about Balfour Park lately, you've probably seen the amphitheater mentioned in the same breath as the splash pad and the new courts, all folded into one glowing sentence about the park's future. That framing is technically accurate and practically useless. It tells you nothing about what you can walk to this weekend versus what you'll be waiting on until your kid starts kindergarten.
What's Actually Finished
The park sits at 105 N. Balfour Road, tucked next to the Spokane Valley Library and City Hall in the stretch the city now calls its civic core. The first real construction phase wrapped in fall 2024, at a cost of roughly $5 million, and it's the part of Balfour that's been fully open and getting used for almost two years: a Sounders FC-branded soccer mini-pitch, a veterans memorial, an events plaza, walking paths, lighting, restrooms, and expanded parking. That mini-pitch is where the grand opening ceremony happened back in September 2024, complete with a nine-year-old kicking the first ceremonial goal.
This year is adding the next layer. Back in May, the city set out to finish roughly $715,000 in construction before the year is out: two full basketball courts with five hoops and four pickleball courts, paid for with a Washington State appropriation plus money from the city's Capital Improvement Program. That's the piece worth checking on if you live within walking distance and haven't swung by since before the courts went in, since it's either freshly finished or close enough to it that you'll want to see for yourself.
The Part That's Funded But Not Built Yet
Here's where the timeline gets interesting, because "coming to Balfour Park" covers two very different situations.
The playground and splash pad are funded and dated. The city has already secured roughly $4 million for a 15,000-square-foot playground and splash park, stitched together from a $500,000 Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program grant, $2 million from the land and water conservation fund, and $1.5 million in city money. Construction is slated for 2027. That's a real number with a real funding source behind it, which in municipal parks projects is the difference between "happening" and "hoped for."
The amphitheater is neither. Parks and recreation director John Bottelli told the Spokesman-Review in May that the city has already done the grading in the park's northwest corner: "We've already done the grading for it... you can kind of see where it will be." But there's no construction budget, no groundbreaking date, and no funding source lined up yet. The estimated cost is more than $3 million for a covered stage, a grassy audience area, and an arching pathway, and Bottelli was direct that detailed design won't start until the money and a timeline exist. "It could take several years," according to the same reporting.
So if you're the kind of person who reads "amphitheater planned for Balfour Park" and starts picturing a summer concert series, recalibrate. The grading is real. Everything after the grading is still a question mark.
| Balfour Park feature | Status as of August 2026 | Funding | Expected to open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sounders FC mini-pitch, veterans memorial, plaza, restrooms, parking | Open and in use since fall 2024 | ~$5 million, completed | Already open |
| Two basketball courts (5 hoops), four pickleball courts | Targeted for completion this year, as of May 2026 | $715,000, state appropriation + city Capital Improvement Program | 2026 |
| 15,000-square-foot playground and splash pad | Funded, not yet built | ~$4 million secured (state grant, conservation fund, city money) | 2027 |
| Outdoor amphitheater | Grading complete, design not started | No funding or timeline secured | Undetermined, "several years" |
Why the Two-Speed Reality Matters More Than the Vision Statement
Bottelli has described the broader goal in bigger terms: "We're creating a bit of a downtown community civic center down there," pointing to the fact that the library, City Hall, a fire station, and the park now sit on the same block. That's a fair description of where Balfour Park is headed. It's also a description that blurs together things happening this month with things that might happen in three years, and if you actually live in Spokane Valley, that blur costs you something. You don't want to plan a family outing around a splash pad that isn't pouring concrete yet, and you don't want to skip the new pickleball courts because you assumed the whole park was still under construction.
The park also connects into the Appleway Trail, which means the courts and mini-pitch aren't an isolated stop. If you're already walking or biking that corridor, Balfour is a legitimate midpoint rather than a destination you'd drive to specifically. About 13,000 people live within a mile of the park, which is a large enough radius that "the park by the library" has quietly become a genuine neighborhood fixture rather than a niche amenity, even while a third of it is still just grading and a funding wishlist.
What To Actually Do With This Information
If you're within a short drive or walk of Balfour Road this month, go check whether the basketball and pickleball courts are finished, especially if the last time you saw the park was before this year's construction started. If you've got a kid who's counting down to a splash pad, 2027 is the honest answer, not "soon." And if you see a headline about the amphitheater breaking ground, know that it will represent real news, because as of this spring that piece hadn't cleared its first funding hurdle.
Spokane Valley has been building toward this civic core since 2013, when the city and the library district first sat down to plan a shared campus. It's taken over a decade to get from that first conversation to the courts going in this year, which is a useful reminder that municipal parks projects move on government time, not press-release time. The mini-pitch that Sounders FC helped christen almost two years ago is proof the slower phases do eventually arrive. The amphitheater just isn't one of them yet.
I've lived and worked in Spokane Valley long enough to watch projects like Balfour Park go from a line item in a comprehensive plan to something my neighbors actually use on a Wednesday night, and I think that gap between "planned" and "playable" is worth paying attention to, whether you're deciding where to spend your evening or just trying to figure out what your property taxes are actually funding. If you ever want to talk through what's changing in this corner of the Valley, or you're curious what any of it might mean for your own home down the road, Kristin Vanos is always happy to compare notes over coffee, no obligation attached.
