PORT ANGELES — If you’ve driven around Civic Field the past couple of weeks, you will have noticed two things — a lot of work going on and a lot of changes happening, especially along the third base side of the field.
Civic Field is being refurbished from top to bottom as part of a long-range city project to upgrade the facilities and as part of a Port Angeles Lefties project to get the field ready for the city’s new collegiate-level wooden bat West Coast League team.
One undertaking was completed before the start of the 2016-17 school year, the installation of LED lighting.
There’s multiple projects going on at present: from a new dugout along the third-base line to a new retaining wall, a new roof for the main grandstand and a new outfield fence.
Will it all be ready in time for the Lefties inaugural season opener against Victoria on June 1? City and Lefties officials hope so, but they acknowledge that the wet spring hasn’t been doing them any favors in finishing the work on time.
“We’re way behind because of the weather,” Lefties co-owner Matt Acker said earlier this week. “There’s not much that we can do about that.”
But Acker says now with the retaining wall and dugout in place and the grading done for the party deck, “I’m getting very optimistic.”
“Now we’re in a crunch, but it will definitely happen” said Port Angeles Parks and Recreation Director Cory Delikat. “Even if everything isn’t finished [in time for opening day].”
The work has taken shape dramatically just in the past few days. What was a big gouge in the side of an embankment for a couple of weeks after this weekend is a concrete structure that is recognizable as a baseball dugout, while the retaining wall has been put in to keep part of the hill from sliding into the parking lot.
The grading has been completed where a beer garden area will be between the third-base dugout and the bullpen.
“It’s a lot of different projects all coming together at once”, said Delikat.
The new dugout was done primarily with volunteer labor from J&J Construction, R J Services and the Wilder Baseball Team, while the Lefties are handling the new retaining wall and party deck. The retaining wall was needed because the embankment on the north end of the field was beginning to slough off, Delikat said.
“These are people just caring about Civic Field and having pride in the team,” said Acker.
The list of businesses donating or trading services and materials include Lakeside Industries, Hartnagel Building Supply, Angeles Concrete, Adamire Concrete, Olympic Electric, Excel Utilities Construction and others.
The Lefties are having much of the work done through trades — by giving companies advertising space on the outfield wall or otherwise around the ballpark, being part of promotions and in some cases, even tickets.
Meanwhile, the city is dealing with the new roof, lighting upgrade, outfield fence, new batting cage and other improvements through the lodging tax and $580,000 in grant funding, $440,000 coming from a pair of grants from the state Recreation and Conservation Office.
The city is using $150,000 in lodging tax funds for the roof, outfield wall and other improvements such as new bathrooms (which will be built next year). About $45,00o of that is going toward the new roof that was put in last week (those driving by the stadium on Race Street likely saw a large crew of workers on the roof of Civic Field over several days).
The city will also be paying for a new paint job that will be coming up in the next few weeks and a new public address system that will probably be installed around August, Delikat said. He also said new panels will be put in place eventually on the side of the grandstands.
Acker estimated the total value of all the projects would come close to $1 million.
After the beer garden and hot tub area is put in along the third-base line, a food truck/trailer will be parked behind the garden and food will be offered by Next Door Gastropub — a restaurant owned by Lefties co-owner Jake Oppelt. Oppelt intends to run for a seat on the Port Angeles City Council this fall.
While the work is ongoing at Civic Field, the Port Angeles high school team is playing its games at Volunteer Field. Delikat is hoping that enough work is done so the Roughriders can play their final home game at Civic on May 1.
But, even if the Riders don’t get to enjoy Civic this year?
“Next year, they will have a really neat facility,” said Delikat.
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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or plabossiere@peninsuladailynews.com.
