The 72-year-old grandstand at Wahconah Park, seen at bottom in this aerial photo, was ordered closed last spring due to deterioration. A project to repair or replace the structure just notched a $3 million allocation from the federal government.
The public will soon be invited to comment on how Pittsfield should proceed with a renovation or replacement of the 72-year-old grandstand at Wahconah Park. The project just notched a $3 million allocation from the federal government.
Restoration Committee met at the park to examine improvements needed at the park. The grandstands are closed this year due to deteriorating support structures. The park is also largely not accessible to persons with disabilities. Thursday, August 11, 2022. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
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The 72-year-old grandstand at Wahconah Park, seen at bottom in this aerial photo, was ordered closed last spring due to deterioration. A project to repair or replace the structure just notched a $3 million allocation from the federal government.
PITTSFIELD— “Once in a lifetime.” That’s how the man leading an effort to fix a historic venue in Pittsfield views his team’s mission.
And now, it’s a cause with a hefty sum at its disposal.
The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill approved last week, and signed Friday by President Joe Biden, allots $3 million for improvements to the grandstand at Wahconah Park, home to the Pittsfield Suns baseball team.
In addition to work at Wahconah, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, secured funding for three other Berkshires projects:
– $750,000 to support ongoing work at Lenox Town Hall.
– $620,000 for the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams to develop a four-year nursing program.
– $200,000 to help the city of North Adams address problems with Hoosic River flood chutes.
All were included under “community project funds” that members of Congress were allowed to tack on to the bill.
Some of the Berkshires allocations were sharply trimmed before approval. For example, Neal asked for $1.5 million for the flood chutes work. A quarter million dollars was pared from Neal’s request for the Lenox Town Hall repairs.
The public will soon be invited to comment on how Pittsfield should proceed with a renovation or replacement of the 72-year-old grandstand at Wahconah Park. The project just notched a $3 million allocation from the federal government.
Restoration Committee met at the park to examine improvements needed at the park. The grandstands are closed this year due to deteriorating support structures. The park is also largely not accessible to persons with disabilities. Thursday, August 11, 2022. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
The 72-year-old Wahconah grandstand, at 105 Wahconah St., was mothballed last spring after it was found to be unsound. Temporary bleachers had to be installed for the summer baseball season. It is believed to be one of the last ballparks in the U.S. with a wooden grandstand.
The Wahconah funding comes six months after the City Council created a committee, led by At-Large City Councilor Earl G. Persip III, to figure out how to repair or replace the grandstand. The nine-member panel worked during the summer and fall to assess problems with the grandstand and find a project manager.
Persip said Monday that when the Wahconah Park Restoration Committee meets Jan. 9, members will now have a hefty thank-you note to compose.
In its six months of work, the committee has studied the depth of the structure’s problems and, recently, selected the firm Skanska USA to act as an owner’s project manager on future construction.
What that will entail isn’t yet known. Persip said the panel plans to give people who care about Wahconah Park a chance to weigh in.
While no decision has been made, the early consensus among committee members, Persip said, is that the grandstand will need to be replaced.
“We still want to have the public involved,” he said. “Public input is very important, especially to me. It’s a beloved park by a lot of people. I think it’s important to hear what people have to say and what they want to see.”
“It’s good for us to understand what makes the park historic,” Persip said.
In his view, a re-imagined park should offer more than baseball. But that mix needs to include ways to bring in revenue able to cover building maintenance. “Smart activities that could be held there, so we don’t have this problem again,” he said.
Though the panel was instructed, when it launched in June, to provide an initial report by this month, Persip said it has asked Mayor Linda Tyer for additional time. Steps to find a project manager resulted in delays.
The new funding adds to resources available as North Adams grapples with ongoing deterioration in the system of flood control structures in the Hoosic River, which flows through the heart of downtown.
The system was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s and 1950s to reduce urban flooding. However, cement panels used to create a new river channel are failing, with some collapsing into the river.
Rushing water is getting behind fallen panels, Neal’s office said in its pitch for funding, resulting in further erosion to river banks and damage to the system.
In October, the City Council authorized borrowing $500,000 to put toward a study of ways to correct the problem. New federal money will help cover the cost of that.
Lenox’s grand public building has suffered its own kind of water damage, including to its rotunda.
Neal’s office asked for money to repair and restore the building’s dome, including new shingles on its roof, repairs to floors and exterior painting. That work has been done already, paid for though a bond of $700,000 OK’d by town meeting voters in June 2021.
Town Manager Christopher Ketchen said the new money will enable the town to continue needed repairs. “With the spending bill just passed, obviously there’s more work we’d like to do to fix damage to the ceiling and improve handicapped access … in addition to taking the pressure off the budget in order to pay off the existing debt,” he said.
The college is moving to create Berkshire County’s first bachelor’s degree in nursing. Neal’s office said the project deserved support in part because of the importance of health care occupations to the region’s economy. In all, 13,500 people work in that field locally, the office said in its pitch for funding.
Meantime, MCLA is working to reverse an enrollment decline. Officials say a new bachelor’s degree program in nursing could help it recruit students.
EAGLE INVESTIGATIONS: A stark enrollment decline at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has led to a reduced course schedule, loss of part-time faculty and the closing of a residence hall.
Gina Puc, MCLA’s vice president for strategic initiative, told trustees in October the campus hopes to see 1,500 students enrolled by 2029, a level it hasn’t seen since 2019. Enrollment by graduate and undergraduate students fell this year to 938 students.
Elsewhere in Neal’s district, these sums were included in the final budget bill:
– $3,000,000 for a cyber security program involving area colleges at Union Station in Springfield.
– $2,854,800 for a water pollution control facility in Chicopee.
– $2 million for the Worthington Senior Center.
– $2 million to renovate the headquarters of Girls Inc. of the Valley in Holyoke.
– $1 million to expand social sciences and education curriculum and programming at Elms College at Chicopee.
– $1 million for a nursing and health sciences program at Westfield State University.
– $1 million for the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts’ Back Office Support Services Program and Vendor Advisory Council.
– $1 million for academic and student support services at Bay Path University in Longmeadow.
– $750,000 for the a project to create athletic playing fields on Morgan Road in West Springfield.
– $513,000 for the Mental Health Association Inc. in Springfield.
In all, Neal was able to direct $20.3 million in “community project funds” to his district. The full $1.7 trillion package, called the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, included $800 billion in non-defense funding and $858 billion in defense spending.
Larry Parnass can be reached at lparnass@berkshireeagle.com and 413-588-8341.
The Wahconah Park Restoration Committee was given a tour of the ballpark on Wahconah Street on Thursday, and the glimpse of the issues inside the facility was “shocking” to one committee member in attendance.
Managing editor for innovation
Larry Parnass joined The Eagle in 2016 from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where he was editor in chief. His freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, CommonWealth Magazine and with the Reuters news service.
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