Oak Ridge council advances phased funding for multi-sport courts while asking designer for alternatives

The Town of Oak Ridge voted to add phased funding for a multi-sport courts project to its capital improvement plan and asked its contracted designer, Remington Reeves, to provide feasibility estimates for alternate locations. The motion puts $800,000 in FY 2027–28, $200,000 in FY 2029–30 and $630,000 in the 6‑plus years column while directing staff to return with cost breakdowns.

Council members debated whether to keep a courts footprint at Heritage Farm Park — the site in the current master plan — or relocate the courts to Redmond Field, where speakers said existing parking, a bathroom and a picnic shelter could reduce the project’s parking and site-work costs. "There's already 54 spaces there," one council member said when describing the Redmond Field option, which the council heard might reduce required parking construction and save significant dollars.

Proponents argued that moving core site elements where infrastructure already exists could lower the total project price and allow earlier delivery. Opponents cautioned that reworking the design contract and master plan could cost additional professional fees, delay grant eligibility and risk losing prior planning work. "We did this plan with expert assistance from McGill and survey data," one speaker said; "I'm not comfortable on the fly reconfiguring this."

Council discussed grant competitiveness: staff and members noted that broader multi-element projects are generally more competitive for the relevant park grants, so removing components (for example, parking) might reduce the grant award. Several members recommended asking Remington Reeves for a scoped feasibility study or revised scope-of-work that would estimate whether relocation or phasing could save money net of additional design costs.

The motion adopted by council directs staff to keep the courts on the CIP as a priority, commit the phased funding amounts above and request Remington Reeves provide cost estimates and feasibility analysis for both the original plan and the relocation/alternate-phasing options. The council’s discussion also emphasized fund-balance risk and the potential need to phase work or identify additional revenue (including discussion of tax-rate effects), but did not adopt any tax change.

Next steps: staff will ask Remington Reeves for a written proposal on feasibility and cost estimates; Parks & Rec and the designer are to meet with council members to review options and a revised cost schedule will be included when the CIP is brought back for formal adoption.