Modern Woodmen Park, home of the Quad Cities River Bandits, will be sporting more of a carnival atmosphere come mid-season.

On Wednesday the Davenport City Council and the city’s Levee Improvement Commission approved the team’s plans to add a 90-foot-tall Ferris wheel, a carousel and a 300-foot zip-line to the ballpark grounds.

The Ferris wheel, initially suggested in 2004 as part of the city’s RiverVision plan, will be located behind the concourse between the left-field foul pole and the scoreboard, as seen in this artist’s rendering:

It looks like a long home run to left field could potentially hit the Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel could be delivered in early June and be operational by the middle of that month. The plan is to operate it seven days a week, regardless of whether there is a ballgame there at the time.

The carousel, to be located near where the bounce houses and other existing kid-friendly activities are, and the zip-line could be in place sometime in May. The zip-line will go along Gaines Street on game days, and cross the field from the first-base side to the left-field area on non-game days.

“What the River Bandits have tried to do from the beginning is not just make this a beautiful baseball stadium, but really turn it into something where it is an integral part of this community, a gathering place of this community,” said David Heller, co-owner of the River Bandits.

“It’s going to be complemented by movies we’ll show on the big video board every Friday and Saturday night when the team is not in town,” he said. “There will be a lot of good reasons to come to Modern Woodmen Park this summer.”

Sources: Quad-Cities Online, Quad-City Times, KWQC.com