Abby Nadeau
Staff Writer

Forest Lake city residents got their first look at the potential $2.2 million Fenway Park Athletic Fields at the Forest Lake City Council meeting on Monday.

City Engineer Phil Gravel and Project Manager Stuart Krahn presented the council with the preliminary plans for the project that includes a variety of athletic fields, play equipment and courts.

The current estimated cost for phase one of the project is $2.2 million, which includes four softball fields, one baseball field, three to four soccer fields, a sand volleyball court, a playground, gravel parking lot as well as various site work improvements like trails and utilities.

Krahn said the project team has debated over 100 variables of the fields including the height of fences, lighting and the angle of the fields/courts.

Each field has its own irrigation system, but not all are lighted.

Krahn said that three of the four softball fields will be lighted and instead of lighting the fourth field, the project team transferred the lighting to one of the soccer fields.

All of the soccer fields were also enlarged to accommodate football games as well.

The gravel parking lot would have enough parking to accommodate 208 slots, or 30 spaces per field.

Krahn said the second phase of the park would include two tennis courts that would double as basketball courts, a concession/restroom and storage building, as well as a paved and curbed parking lot. However, no cost estimates were given for the second phase.

“The goal is to get the turf established, the rest would be phased in,” Krahn said.

As the council responded to the plans, the group seemed to be most concerned with the layout of the fields and financing.

Council member Susan Young said she would like to see the tennis and basketball courts go in “sooner than later.”

She added that many of the fields are for large organized sports and that she would like to see options for residents who just want a quick pick-up game with maybe two or four people.

Mayor Stev Stegner asked City Administrator Chip Robinson how the project would be financed.

Robinson said the athletic fields would be financed by the park fees from the adjacent Headwaters development, but the park fee monies are not available at the moment.

“We have some ideas and we could possibly borrow from a current city fund and pay it back when the Headwaters developers start (paying),” Robinson said. “There are lots of scenarios.”

He added that he can work on a finance package and have some more concrete numbers in about a month.

The city will then look at what finances are available and will then make a decision on more specifics of the athletic complex.

“I would feel more comfortable if the city waited on bids until the council looked at the finance package,” Robinson said.

The athletic field presentation was only preliminary and the goal was to get an idea of what the council wanted to see.

The city will not have access to the area until July when the Headwaters development is done grading.

Gravel said the city will be working on that July timeline to look at the finance packaging and awarding bids to contractors.

No action was taken on the complex since it was an informational item.

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