It appears the new Rotary Athletic Park of Olds, to be built in the northwest corner of town, won't be available for use until some time in 2019, director of community services Doug Wagstaff says.
He notes construction on the approximately $3.6-million project is expected to get underway this year. The park, located along 70th Avenue, just north of the Cornerstone shopping development, will contain soccer pitches as well as baseball and softball diamonds.
Plans call for $3.1-million worth of work to be done this year, with another $1.2-million or $1.3-million worth of work undertaken in 2019.
"There's going to be a lot of construction. The odds of having surfaces -- I mean, even if they're built in 2018, you're not going to go out and play on them immediately. You're going to want some growth on those and let them take," he says.
"So, yeah, it's looking more and more like it's going to be into 2019 at this point. But the summer's going to tell us. You never know how much you can get done. All of a sudden, if the snow goes and we don't get any rain and you get a long fall, we'll see how far we can go with it."
He predicts the work will go out for tenders in the next few weeks.
Wagstaff says certain "finishing touches" for the park aren't even scheduled to be completed in 2019.They include pathways and trees.
"But the fields themselves, we're going to go as far as we can," he says.
Wagstaff says the late spring has had "a bit" of an effect on the construction schedule for the park.
"I mean, there's a lot of snow on that quarter section where we're going to be segmenting off the playing fields, and it's going to take some time to dry off," he says.
But, "we've also leveraged that a little bit by taking some time on the front end, on the planning. We knew we weren't going to be able to get out there right away."
Wagstaff says if all goes well, it's hoped the fields can be sodded or seeded this fall. The grass would then be given time to grow out.
In addition to the "finishing touches" noted above, other amenities like goalposts, bleachers and site furniture are expected to be installed in 2019.
