Saugeen Shores councillors have gotten a look at the conceptual plan for the Lamont Sports Park.
The plan includes ball diamonds, sports fields, washrooms, parking and trails.
It was presented Monday, (June 22nd) to Committee of Whole by Sports Turf International which has been working with the Town's Lamont Sports Park Advisory Committee.
The presentation estimates the entire project will cost about $12 million over the next ten years, and about $2.48 million in 2020 as well as in 2021.
Mayor Luke Charbonneau says “We have now, some idea of what we want to build, how it will look and the overall cost. Now we need to sort of drill down on those numbers and figure out exactly how we're going to approach that so it can be affordable.”
The population, and baseball leagues are growing in the community and it is running out of diamonds to accommodate them. The Town's 2016 Recreation Master Plan says there are eight ball diamonds and it projects there will be a need for 14 by 2023.
Charbonneau says the plan allows for a phased-in approach to construction, “So we can get part of it up and running in the short term.”
He says the rest is a long term plan, “It's got eight baseball diamonds. Ultimately when it's fully built out,” says Charbonneau noting that will be over the next decade or so.
He adds, “Initially the plan is to construct a smaller number of diamonds and the infrastructure to support that.”
Now that the Advisory Committee has supported the consultant's work, Town staff will finalize the business plan for Council's review.
You can view the Concept Plan on the Town's website.
A media release says staff will finalize a business plan for proposed facility in the coming weeks.
