Work continues on an historic baseball grandstand in Springfield's Forest Park that is being brought up to code and enhanced.
Excavation work, careful disassembly and loads of gravel have been shifting at the Walker Memorial Grandstand.
It's where the city says major renovations are underway, following several years of planning and funding coming together.
It’s also part of a broader, master plan to redevelop parts of the park. Officials are looking to modernize the covered bleachers that have overlooked baseball games for nearly 80 years, according to Mayor Domenic Sarno.
“This will be ready, my understanding, for play in April,” he told reporters on Monday, Oct. 28. “So, it's going to be fantastic. A lot of things are going to be redone - it's back to the future.”
Sarno, city officials and Congressman Richard Neal of the 1st district took part in a groundbreaking for the project last week.
By the time the project's complete, the grandstand's expected to be ADA-compliant, with improved seating, a concession area, and new restrooms.
“We really want this to be a marquee site - a great place for high school kids and Legion kids, college kids and even semi-pro teams to come and say, ‘We want to play at Walker stadium, at Forest Park,’” said Tom Ashe, the city’s director of Parks, Buildings, and Recreation Management. “And we're going to make sure, on our end, that that happens.”
Peter Garvey, the director of capital asset construction for the city, says the grandstand dates to the 1940's and that the large-scale renovations are the first of their kind for the baseball diamond.
The work has about $4 million in funding behind it - at least a million dollars from the city's bond account, and $3 million in federal funding via the Federal Community Project Funding Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Neal had previously announced the grant funds two years prior. Speaking at the groundbreaking, both he and Sarno recounted their own time playing at the field.
"One of the nice things about a long career is that you can only remember the good games that you played here, then there aren't enough people around anymore to remind people the bad nights you had here,” he joked. “But redoing the Walker Grandstand here has been an avocation of mine over these years. The mayor and I have talked extensively about it … it's a great address."
City officials have previously said other improvements include a new roof for the grandstand, as well as new dugouts and a new backstop.
Both Neal and Sarno also mentioned naming the dugouts after longtime Springfield sports writer and columnist, Garry Brown - who died in 2022 after decades of chronicling the local sports scene and beyond.
“His interviewees always felt very comfortable with him. I always remember that photo shot in The Republican or [The Springfield] Daily News when he was interviewing Tony Peña, the Red Sox catcher, at Fenway Park,” Sarno recounted. “But whether he was talking to you as a John L. Sullivan Sandlot [League] ball player or professional Major Leaguer, Garry was always the same, and we're going to continue to honor him.”
According to the city, the grandstand improvements are part of a larger, master plan that has included redeveloping Forest Park’s horticulture section – an effort totaling $12.5 million that also calls for replacing the park’s original 1900 greenhouse.
