Concord committee outlines $19.2M plan to rebuild Memorial Field, schedules October presentation

The City and Community Relations Committee on Aug. 18 discussed a multi‑phase plan to rebuild Memorial Field in Concord, presenting a phase‑one cost estimate of $19,176,442 and scheduling a public presentation by Dave Field in October. The committee described plans to reconfigure fields and parking, fix longstanding drainage failures and add two stadiums — a 2,000‑seat turf stadium and a separate track stadium with roughly 750 seats — while keeping the site available for both school and city use.

Committee members said the work aims to address persistent drainage and scheduling problems that leave fields unusable after rain and limit simultaneous events. The plan calls for raising parts of the site to improve drainage, installing two turf fields to expand the season and scheduling capacity, and reconfiguring softball and baseball areas. Phase one, as described to the committee, would include the track, a multipurpose turf field, two softball fields, drainage work and expanded parking.

Details discussed included locating the larger stadium away from Fruit Street to reduce light and sound impacts on nearby homes, moving lights and loudspeaker orientation toward parking and the woods, and a reconfigured traffic flow with separate entrances and exits to ease bus circulation. Committee members noted the project would eliminate the Lisonbee Little League field permanently for the construction period and that the intermediate‑age Little League group will need an alternate field.

Officials described code and cost implications for amenities: placing concession or team‑room spaces under permanent grandstands would trigger current fire‑safety requirements and substantially increase cost, so those uses were not included under the stands in the current design. Committee members also discussed whether to add a permanent restroom building or rely on temporary solutions during events.

Funding and governance remain undecided. Committee members said the city and school have discussed splitting initial costs roughly 50/50 for design and early phases, but they emphasized that final cost‑sharing, a memorandum of understanding and rules for revenue sharing will need formal negotiation. The committee also pointed out a deed covenant on the donated land that limits school use to no more than 50 percent of the site; members said that covenant must be respected in any final agreement.

Timeline and phasing were described as preliminary. Designers aim to complete final design during the winter and hope for a design package by spring; committee members said they were told officials want to begin construction as soon as practicable and mentioned a target of roughly a year to start work, subject to each organization’s budget and approvals. The group discussed interim field availability, including asking neighboring school districts and city parks for shared use while construction removes some fields from service.

Committee members also weighed turf versus grass. They noted modern turf avoids some legacy concerns (including PFAS additives, members said the current products in consideration do not use PFAS) and extends usable months (committee members said turf typically extends use from about March through November versus later start and earlier end for grass). Concerns about injury, heat and turf maintenance were raised and flagged for later design discussion.

Cost estimates for later phases were discussed as preliminary: committee materials list roughly $3 million for a baseball‑stadium renovation (Warren Doan Stadium) and about $6 million for concessions, bathrooms and maintenance buildings, with an additional roughly $3 million for future site improvements and new courts. Committee members characterized some of those later estimates as likely high and said the numbers could change during design and bidding.

Next steps: the committee invited the full board to the October presentation (to be scheduled during the city communications meeting) when Dave Field will present final renderings and more detailed cost and schedule information. Committee members said formal decisions on cost‑sharing, a memorandum of understanding and construction authorizations will come after design and budget negotiations.