Green Forest board agrees to buy baseball, softball fields

The Green Forest School Board has unanimously approved the district’s purchase of the baseball and softball fields at Green Forest City Park.

At a special called meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 26, the board voted 7-0 to spend $190,000 to purchase the 7.99-acre area of the park that includes the high school baseball and softball fields and two youth fields.

The district had been renting the fields from the city for $1,000 a year.

The Green Forest City Council had previously approved a resolution offering the fields to the district for “fair market value,” according to superintendent Matt Summers, who added that the city and district agreed to split 50-50 a $2,400 closing cost.

“We will take official ownership at closing, which could be anywhere from two to four weeks,” Summers said. “Obviously, this is kind of a down time for those fields … spring, summer, of course is when they’re hit the most.”

Summers said the longterm plan is to make improvements to areas such as dugouts, bathrooms and concession areas along with a vision of the addition of batting cages at some point. The top priority is, however, is replacing the lights at the park, which were destroyed by last year’s tornadoes.

After the vote to approve the park purchase, the board OK’d a low bid of $390,000 from GeoSport Lighting to replace the lights at the park, the superintendent said, adding that the goal is to have them installed around the start of January.

“We’re hearing it will be anywhere from six to 10 weeks for delivery of poles,” Summers said. “That’s going to slow the process down considerably. The leadup times for the poles is the major, major concern. They have already started working on our lighting system. They build their own.

“All four fields will be lit. We will be using the big poles from the varsity fields to shoot lights across and try to eliminate having an excess amount of poles as much as possible. They’ve designed it and engineered the plans to shoot the lights over.”

The costs of the entire project will come out of the district’s building fund, Summers said.

“We moved monies at the end of budget to the building fund,” he said. “We moved $855,000, which was our carryover. So, these funds will be coming out of our building fund.”

Summers said two district employees currently focus on lawn care for the district and will help maintain the park facilities once the district takes ownership.

“We will most likely be looking to add more help and looking at adding an additional machine because of what’s needed there,” he said. “Those will be additions down the road which we don’t expect to be immediate. Probably right around the first of the year.”

Also on the district’s agenda for the park are revenue sources including the possibilities of selling advertising for outfield fences and even the possibility of sponsorship agreements for naming rights for the fields, Summers said.

“We are looking at reaching out to businesses as far as sponsorships, things like that,” he said. “We will also be looking at a grant, all to help offset the cost of the lights. … We will be exercising all of those options which we think will bring in a little boost of energy and some finances.”

While the Green Forest High School baseball and softball programs will be using the two primary fields in the complex located only three blocks from campus, youth teams will continue to have access as to the park as well.

“We already have a memorandum of understanding with youth sports for football, where they use our practice facility and our game facility,” Summers said. “They also use our gymnasium for little kids basketball.

“We will extend that MOU to cover baseball and softball.”

If all goes as planned, things will return to normal for the Green Forest Tigers and Lady Tigers after having to adjust their schedules last year and play many home games at alternate locations with the lighting situation at the park.

“We played all but just a handful, one or two games, on the road,” Summers said, adding that coaches for the two programs are excited about the district taking over the complex.

“They’ve been in a tough spot this year but they’re surviving and moving forward,” he said. “They are real excited.”

The rest of Green Forest City Park, which includes a playground, basketball court and soccer fields, will remain city property.