The city of Albany is about to take the first concrete step toward establishing a new youth sports complex, mainly for soccer at first but also for other sports.

City staff have negotiated an agreement to buy 26.6 acres of farmland at Ellingson and Lochner roads from Chad Curry for $1,247,344.

The agreement gives the city an option to buy another 5 acres of the Curry property at the same price - $46,875 an acre - which would yield a total of nearly 32 acres for sports fields and other park facilities.

The issue comes before the city council Wednesday night in the form of a public hearing to approve budget changes to account for the purchase. The council meets at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.

The property is outside the southern city limits but inside the urban growth boundary.

Money for the purchase comes from park systems development charges, collected on new construction.

Ed Hodney, parks and recreation director, said he hopes that planning and design of the sports complex can start in the next year or so, but construction likely will have to wait because the flow of systems development funds has diminished along with a slowdown in new construction.

The plan is to construct at least 10 soccer fields on the property to start with. That's so soccer can be moved there from Timber-Linn Memorial Park, where the parks department wants to put in additional softball fields.

A new community park featuring youth sports fields on the south side of town was part of the parks master plan adopted in 2006.

Soccer fields at Timber-Linn are considered substandard, Hodney said. The new ones would be irrigated and possibly lighted as well.

In addition to soccer, the new park likely will feature youth football and softball fields as well.

Just how many is hard to say now because it hasn't been decided how to fit the fields around possible wetlands on the site.

The overall costs of the entire complex cannot yet be estimated, but Hodney put them at "several million dollars."

As a community park, the place will have other features such as a playground, picnic areas, parking and perhaps a jogging trail.