AURORA —Four new, multi-purpose playing fields covered in evergreen synthetic turf are done and platted side-by-side, surrounded by bran new field lights across 17 acres of expanded land at the Aurora Sports Park.

More than 370 new parking spaces have been poured and paved, and a new restroom building and vending kiosk are up and running after just months of construction.

“All major components are complete,” said Tracy Young, Aurora’s manager of planning design and construction in the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Department. “We only have some minor tasks to wrap up in the next week or two.”

WATCH: Aurora Sports Park set to reopen soon with multi-purpose playing fields

The $11 million expansion of the 250-acre sports park at 19300 E. Colfax Ave. began in February in an effort to increase both the capacity of the park, which serves more than 410,000 people every year, and the amount of time that it can be used.

“We set a schedule at the beginning of the year based on how much the turf grass can handle — that is how we ‘max out’ play at the facility,” said Sherri-Jo Stowell, spokeswoman for the city’s parks department. “We have more requests for tournaments, league play and practices than we can currently accommodate, but we now have the ability to play longer in the season with this new synthetic turf.”

The most consistent use of the city’s sports park fields comes from local leagues, like youth soccer, and the largest use happens when the city hosts one of its dozens of annual tournaments (or two at the same time).

The 15-year-old Aurora Sports Park was built with 12 baseball and softball fields and 23 multi-use fields for everything from soccer to rugby, but all of those fields were made with natural grass.

“The great thing about the synthetic turf is that it won’t require us to stop using it in the winter when regular turf grass would be going dormant,” Stowell said. “Of course, it’s still weather dependent — for example we won’t be plowing snow off the turf.”

During construction, the city received an Arapahoe County Open Space Tax Grant that paid for the lighting on the new fields. None of the other 23 multi-use fields have lighting.

During public comment for the project, “lighting was requested over and over,” Young said. “It makes a lot of sense that we added this amenity, especially this time of year, when the days are getting shorter.”

Other improvements include spectator seating built on grass berms that line the west, south and east portions of the fields, a pedestrian connection to the west fields, a plaza and event area at the entrance, picnic areas, a sod practice space and a drop-off plaza in the new parking lot.

Though the turf fields will be open to the public in a matter of weeks, no games or tournaments are scheduled this year, only limited practice use. The first official league play will be scheduled in the spring.

“The addition of the sports turf and lights at the Aurora Sports Park will benefit our football and lacrosse programs — we currently have 35 football and 20 lacrosse teams,” said Kevin Johnson, vice president of the Aurora-based Spartan Youth Club. “Having sports turf will give us the opportunity to host playoff and championship games for each sport, and we also now plan to have a ‘Friday Night Lights’ kick-off to the 2016 football season.”

Brenda House, director of operations for the Colorado Rapids Youth Soccer Club, said, “We are looking forward to the opening of the new turf fields at the Aurora Sports Park and we are so excited to use the fields for practice, games and tournaments throughout the year.”

This was the first upgrade to the park since it opened in 2000.

Last year, the city purchased 34 acres of land west of Dunkirk Street for the sole purpose of phased expansion of the park. There are currently no plans or funding to develop the remaining 17 acres, but city officials have mused over the idea of building an indoor fieldhouse or a championship stadium on the land.

The near-finished expansion project is being paid for through certificates of participation over 10 years. The city put up $4 million to purchase the 34 acres, and the other $7 million was used for the construction.

Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, mmitchell@denverpost.com or @Mmitchelldp