The Rockhurst athletic department’s additions to Loloya Park is almost completed.

The new-look stadium will feature a press box, permanent chairback seating, bleacher seats, restrooms and a new scoreboard.

The stadium seating will be behind the home plate netting and extend nearly to the dugouts down both baselines. The stadium will seat approximately 500 people, about 100 of which will be chair-back seating. The entire front row will be handicap accessible. Lawn seating will still be available down the first-base line on the grassy hill that many spectators currently use.

The press box will be 36 feet by 14 feet and can seat ten working individuals, such as an announcer, scorekeeper and scouts. Restrooms will be located under the stadium.

A dedication ceremony is planned for Sunday, and on April 28, Rockhurst will host a home game which will see a reunion of Rockhurst past baseball players and a recognition of donors.

Rockhurst athletic director and head baseball coach Gary Burns said that the baseball stadium is “fantastic.” The stadium has been in the works for a long time and is completely funded by the generosity of donors, according to Burns. Vance Rezpka was the field architect and Gould Evans designed the press box.

The Loyala Park project began 10 years ago and increased the campus footprint by one-third. The project instituted opportunities to establish tennis, softball, and baseball on campus.

Rockhurst’s baseball field was established in 2004, and the stadium’s first phase–which included the creation of dugouts and restrooms–was completed in 2016.

Burns always updates facilities whenever possible, and he believes that proper facilities serve an important purpose to “make a better environment for student-athletes to participate in.”

Rockhurst’s upcoming goals in the athletic department are to build a recreation center next to the soccer field–which is already in the works–and to improve the soccer stadium. Additionally, the department hopes to re-turf the soccer field in four years, improve Mason Halpin Field House and astro-turf the baseball infield.