Repairs begin at Bode Sports Complex
Apr. 23—Areas around the Bode Sports Complex are undergoing a spring spruce-up.
Crews from Lee Grover Construction are refurbishing the basketball and pickleball courts and installing a new futsal arena.
The project, initially estimated to cost about $770,000, consists of a tear-out of the basketball courts and an overlay to the pickleball court. Additionally, on the basketball side, two courts will be completely torn out and replaced with futsal courts. The construction company will lay over parts of the old foundation to strengthen it.
While the project is expected to conclude before the end of June, several additions may delay the project into July.
Still, Parks and Recreation Director Chuck Kempf remains hopeful regarding the project's timing and believes the changes will be of great benefit in the long run.
"We're hopeful that the schedule will stay on," Kempf said. "These changes that we're making will affect it a little bit, so we may end up having to push it back, but we're pretty confident that it's not going to be a significant delay because of this."
The initial project with the basketball courts was a complete tear-out, replacing the base and then adding a new asphalt overlay, Kempf said. However, the plans changed.
"The contractor has been down there taking a look at what's there," he said. "They've tried to analyze what we have. They think we're actually in better shape if we leave the existing surface. They will do some significant repair work in the area where we've got the bigger cracking. They will move that out, basically trench that area, fill it back in with some more stable base material."
The decision comes down to a natural spring underneath the existing Bode Sports Complex, which could complicate any complete tear out of the existing material.
Once the repairs are complete, Kempf said there are talks of pouring material over the entire platform to smooth things out and hopefully beautify the arena.
After noticing the basketball scoreboards were in terrible shape, the decision was made to tear them out and replace them near the project's conclusion.
"When we were removing the scoreboards we determined that they weren't in the best of shape and were going to be really difficult to remove and then put them back up and then keep them functional," Kempf said. "We didn't really realize how bad of shape they were in. So we're going to replace the scoreboards while we're in the process of doing the project."
Kempf says the project is still under budget by more than $200,000, a feat his department fully intends to maintain. Funding for the project will come from the parks sales tax passed in August 2021.
Daniel Slaybaugh can be reached at daniel.slaybaugh@newspressnow.com.
