Updated plans for the renovation of the city’s primary athletic facility, including multiple new fields, bathrooms and a concession area, call for the project to cost slightly more than $31 million.
Up from the previous figure of $27 million, the new estimate came in at $31,170,376 with a 15% contingency, members of Concord’s Memorial Field’s planning committee were told.
City councilor Jeff Foote said the committee will continue to explore ways to lower costs.
“I think that’s where my comment came from, is to have another party look at this before we meet and really get tied to these numbers because I think they’re high,” Foote said. “I think they’re very high.”
The project is split up into four phases; the first phase is the most significant and accounts for $19.2 million of the total.
Parks and Recreation Director David Gill said he will seek options and opinions to narrow estimates and find a way to bring the total down.
“The focus is going to be on the fields, the drainage and the parking, understanding that the cost estimates, items three and four, are the last of our priority,” Gill said.
Poor drainage and swamped fields have been persistent issues at Memorial Field and have kept athletes off the site after rainstorms, leading to significant reductions in playing time.
Drainage would be addressed sequentially as new fields are built on top of the new solid ground, Gill said, and it would be completed in its entirety within the first phase.
Parking expansion, a practice field, a new stadium with 2,000 seats around a multi-purpose field, a new track with a field within it, and two new softball fields are also included in phase one.
Phase two would reorient the baseball field with home plate facing the northeast and the outfield near the expanded parking lot. The renovation, including new stands, is estimated to cost $2.9 million.
City Councilor Nathan Fennessy said he’s primarily focused on phases one and two, which address the most pressing needs of the facility. Even though phases one and two were higher than he would like, phases three and four were much higher than he expected.
Those phases totaled around $9.1 million and include concessions, bathrooms, and maintenance buildings, as well as general site improvements like new tennis courts, landscaping, fencing, and lights for the courts.
The committee had previously discussed keeping the courts as they are because they’re relatively new
“The other stuff is, yeah, we may do it at some point. I’m sure we can enhance the usage of fields with it, but it’s kind of all extra,” Fennessy said.
Concord resident Bert Cooper, who was openly critical of the school board’s handling of the Rundlett Middle School project, questioned some of the proposed elements of the Memorial Field plan.
“Citizens are seeing an awful lot of projects totaling, we’re talking what? Well over $300 million, no, $200 million,” Cooper said.
He questioned whether the Merrimack Valley and Pennacook communities were supportive of the price of the new facilities that mainly benefit Concord High School athletics.
“The issue we keep circling back to is we want to build this great vision. And this great vision is great. But it ends up taking a lot longer and a lot more money,” Cooper said.
Cooper was primarily concerned with the significant investment in the new turf field and its relocation, which led to the reorganization of the park itself.
He added that the drainage issue should have been addressed sooner before a complete overhaul became necessary.
Foote argued that the costs of maintenance for the field would be comparable to the current work that goes into maintaining grass while increasing usage time.
Fennessy and school board member Jim Richards added that the potential revenue streams for the rental of facilities would also increase as other community groups rent the facility.
Cooper wasn’t crazy about those plans.
“It’s one thing when we have Concord rec activities out on a field like this, the whole community can afford it, and can play,” he said. “It’s quite another thing when we have club teams; they force kids to pay thousands of dollars to play on a team. Yeah, I’m sure they’d like to rent our fields too, again, but in that sense, we’re subsidizing them.”
The representatives on the committee will recommend the conceptual master plan to their respective bodies, and in October, Gill will present the conceptual plans to the school board and city council.