PITTSFIELD — With the 2026 FIFA World Cup set to kick off in June, the U.S. Soccer Foundation is looking to install 20 mini-pitch facilities in Massachusetts to boost excitement for the sport.

Pittsfield wants in, and it's got a site for the installation — the inline street hockey rink at Crane Park.

At its meeting last week, the Pittsfield Board of Parks Commissioners approved advancing the project. However, the Parks Commission held off on sending the proposal to the City Council because the city still needs to secure the grant from the U.S. Soccer Foundation and notify neighborhood residents.

Jim McGrath, the city's park, open space and natural resource program manager, said that the mini-pitch will allow the city to meet a growing demand.

“We’ve been hearing about these mini-pitches and these urban soccer facilities for some time,” he said.

A mini-pitch is a small, hard court or synthetic turf area typically used for soccer and pickup games. They are designed to rejuvenate underutilized urban areas and provide safe, accessible recreational spaces in local neighborhoods.

There are currently more than 900 in America, and 70 percent of them are in dense, low-resource areas, according to the U.S. Soccer Foundation.

Crane Park, located on Dartmouth Street, is home to the city’s only outdoor floor hockey rink.

McGrath informed the Parks Commission that he is in the early stages of grant approval with the U.S. Soccer Foundation that would allow the city to install a mini-pitch on the rink surface. The grant would be for more than $100,000 in materials and labor.

The facility would have a galvanized steel border with built-in goals, and it would be 60 by 120 feet, McGrath said. If the city secures the grant, which McGrath said he is “pretty certain” it will get, and receives City Council approval, the Parks Commission would work to schedule installation.

McGrath said it also doesn’t “radically change” what they’re doing at the park.

“It preserves inline skating, but it also gives us the ability to host urban soccer … at a brand-new facility,” he said, adding that the U.S. Soccer Foundation hopes to build the facility in the fall.

McGrath presented the project to the commission as part of upgrades to Crane Park. McGrath said that the rink has “served the neighborhood pretty well over the years,” but is roughly 30 years old and is showing wear.

The Pittsfield Parks Commission approved moving forward with a plan to put a mini-pitch on the current rink at Crane Park. “We’ve been hearing about these mini-pitches and these urban soccer facilities for some time,” Jim McGrath, the city's park, open space and natural resource program manager, said.

He said that portions of the boards are rotting and that there have been cracks on the asphalt surface. McGrath said they’ve done crack repairs recently because some of the cracks were 2 or 3 inches wide.

The city would need to cover about $10,000 in expenses to get the site ready for the U.S. Soccer Foundation to build the facility. McGrath said he is confident that the city will get the funding to cover the expenses and that he’s been in contact with a local funder.

Ultimately, McGrath said it will cost the city “nothing.”

The U.S. Soccer Foundation would provide the system and the labor, and it would take three or four days for them to build it, McGrath said.