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PLAINVILLE -- They've built it, and they're inviting you to come.

Plainville's "Field of Dreams" finally, after a 10-year wait, opened its first game fields in April and will hold a rededication ceremony to officially celebrate the project next month.

"It's very gratifying, wonderful to actually see this," said Maureen Dunfey of the Parks and Recreation Department. "For a small town like Plainville to have been able to develop a project of this size, I think we did an excellent job."

The fields opened with the first game of the spring baseball season on April 18, but a ceremony will be held June 21.

It's been a long road for those behind the project, who have spent the last decade acquiring the land, getting the funding and actually performing the manual labor that made the fields ready for play. Dunfey said the project was born more out of necessity than dreams, and put into planning when King Philip sold back land it owned to the town and then the town built Beatrice Wood Elementary School. With that school, the town lost two playing fields.

"We knew we were going to need fields at some point," Dunfey said. "We didn't foresee that the town was going to take away (those fields). Now, we're a little bit ahead of where we were five years ago."

The team first acquired the necessary land, about 30 acres of viable field greens, some of which the town already owned.

With $350,000 from the town, approved by a town meeting vote, fundraising began through dances, raffles and donations. When that netted the project an additional $130,000, ground was broken in September 2006.

Dunfey and the parks and recreation staff, together with volunteers, got the land ready and seeded the fields in May 2008.

"It grew over the last summer and fall," Dunfey said. "Now we're playing baseball."

It's only Phase 1 of the project, but the "Field of Dreams" is open for play with a Babe Ruth baseball field and a multi-purpose field that will be used for baseball, softball, adult leagues and travel soccer.

The June 21 ceremony will rededicate the field to the late Paul J. Spadoni, for whom the field was previously named. His wife and children will be at the ceremony, to which local and state officials have been invited.

"I think it's great that they've gotten this far with so little municipal money. Most of it was done with good, old hard work," Selectman Robert Fennessey said. "And to dedicate the field to Mr. Spadoni, it ties together the past and present, and I think that's important for the town."

After that, Dunfey and her team will focus on completing Phase 1 of the project. A practice soccer field has been prepped and is ready to be seeded. Plans for the complex still include a playground, basketball court, two additional Little League fields and a second soccer field. Dunfey also has long-term plans for a maintenance/storage building, snack bar and restrooms.

Right now, though, the available fields are a rewarding milestone.

"There were days when we didn't think this actually would happen," Dunfey said. "It's wonderful to actually see that it did."