St. Joseph Public Schools is preparing to begin renovations at the baseball fields in Dickinson Park.
At a meeting this week, the board of education approved engaging an engineering firm to update plans for the work now that a delay has been overcome.
Superintendent Jenny Fee tells us a donor about three years ago came forward with a gift to improve the ballfields. However, the donation wasn’t quite enough, and the district needs to kick in some money of its own. Fee says because Dickinson Park is owned by the city of St. Joseph, an arrangement had to be made for that to be possible.
“In order to fulfill the donor’s vision of the project, we were short to be able to really fulfill the vision,” Fee said. “If the district doesn’t own property, we can’t put our own money into it. So, we’ve had to work with the city over time, and they’ve been great partners in this, but it took us a while to get a 50-year lease on that property. With a 50-year lease, we can put our own money into it.”
Fee says the district would previously lease the park in ten-year increments. The deal for the new 50-year lease was reached with St. Joseph City Commissioners in December.
At this week’s meeting, the school board authorized spending $52,000 on engineering to prepare for work to resurface the ballfield and to install new fencing, dugouts, and press boxes.
Fee said they hope to start construction this summer.
