As far as the Brickyard field according to this article in last October's Bee, it was a $100,000 fix including new drainage.
Westwood Park’s Brickyard Baseball Field recently finished its $100,000 makeover, with the Town of Lancaster Highway Department and Town of Lancaster Parks & Recreation Department completing their town board approved fixes.
“You know, we started thinking about it, right when I got in during January,” said Town of Lancaster Highway Superintendent John Pilato. He added that the area little league teams had approached his department for upgrades, hoping the town board would approve the action. Area high schools also use the space as an alternative practice field. “We keep hearing, you know, in the background, the condition of the ball fields [in Lancaster],” Pilato said. “We went and looked at Brickyard [baseball field], and it was unplayable until June sometimes.” It was at that point, Pilato said, his department began pushing for an approval to repair. “We said, you know what, we’re going to tackle Brickyard and we are going to make it pretty again and playable again.”
Explaining the process, Pilato described what it took to bring the field back up to snuff. “We had to strip the existing turf. We had to get a lot of clay out of there. We ran an extensive drainage system.” He added, “The Highway Department did a great job installing drains throughout the outfield.”
In order to save money on the topsoil, Pilato said they bought in bulk, screening it on-site using Alden-based company R.E. Lorenz Construction Inc. “It was around 800 yards of fill we brought in just to bring it back to grade,” he said.
Regarding price, Pilato believes the town and taxpayers got a deal for the total cost of this project. “It ended up costing around $100,000. You know, quotes that we were getting to subcontract it out, they were coming in at around $300,000,” he said. “So, by combining the two departments to tackle this, you know, not only did we save the taxpayers around $200,000, but we were able to make sure that it was done properly to our specs.”
Pilato also expressed his gratitude to both the Town Highway Department and Recreation & Parks Department for their joint efforts in getting this project completed. “These guys stayed until 7:30 p.m. at night. It took us two days to lay this sod. Everybody stayed, everybody worked well together, and it just came out fantastic.”