Marion ballfield upgrades ahead of schedule

Marion ballfield upgrades ahead of schedule

Work almost completed at sports complex

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Work is ahead of schedule on the new backstops and dugouts at the softball fields at the sports complex in Marion.

Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rawls told the city council that all of the block work on the backstops and dugouts is finished and that they have started to paint and will put up the netting soon.

“We’re ahead of schedule of where we hoped we’d be,” Rawls said. “We started to paint the block walls. Probably next week we will have all of the netting up. And we’re going to start on the roofs.”

The city will be enlarging the dugouts at the four softball fields from 23 feet to 30 feet, and will be ten feet deep instead of six feet, similar to what they did at the girl’s softball field three years ago.

Rawls said location and aesthetics play a big part in determining where tourna- ments are held.

The enlarged dugouts will be more comfortable and give teams more room to move around in.

The fields will also get new brick backstops and a 25 foot net which will make it easier to watch the action instead of having to watch the action through a chain link fence. The higher net will also cut down on foul balls that get knocked into the crowd.

“I think there is a real good possibility we will be done with most of the work — if not all of the construction part of it — by the end of December,” Rawls said.

The cost for the project is about $250,000 to $300,000. Voters approved spending $1.075 million from a $16 million bond for parks improvements.

By Mark Randall