About the only thing that won’t be altered is the high school building itself, which was constructed in the early 1970s.
“It’s going to be an amazing change … because it’s going to look like nothing that you see right now,” Lewiston High School athletic director Jason Fuller said last week.
“They’re going to have to fill in some areas, they’re going to drop the land a little bit, raise some land. If you go out there now, the fields all sit at different heights, and (when the project is done) it will be fairly similar heights, and that’s going to be a very different look and feel back there.”
Fuller said he often is asked if the Lewiston athletic complex project is still going to happen.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s just a matter of dotting the I’s and crossing some T’s.”
The school is working through constant approval processes regarding the details of the project, but Fuller and Lewiston High School principal Shawn Chabot said that construction is on pace to begin in June, after the high school spring sports season concludes.
Fields relocating
It will be mayhem.
“It’s a huge, huge project. Huge project,” Chabot said.
The current football/soccer/lacrosse field will become a parking lot for a new elementary school, which will replace Longley and Martel elementary schools. That new school will be built on the soccer practice field directly west of the football field. The high school’s baseball/field hockey field will be replaced by a playground and playing field for the elementary school.
The football field, Don Roux Field, will be moved to the current football practice field, which is on the west side of the high school. The new Roux Field will still be home to the football, and boys’ and girls’ soccer and lacrosse teams.
The space for the new field will be upgraded. Some of the brush surrounding the field will be cleared to make room for bleachers on both sides.
“Like a little stadium in a bowl,” Chabot said.
“It’s going to sit down low,” Fuller said. “It’ll be pretty nice, I think.”
The grass field will be replaced by artificial turf. The light structures from the current field will be moved to the new spot, and Fuller said there is a chance that a second field will also have lights. More lights mean more night games, which are less likely to conflict with parents’ work schedules.
The baseball/field hockey field will be relocated to Marcotte Park, which is north of the school. The grass at Marcotte also will be replaced with artificial turf — the entire surface will be turf, there won’t be cutouts for the base paths. Fuller said exactly how this field will look hasn’t been decided, specifically whether the base paths will be brown artificial turf to mimic dirt like the field at Colby College.
One of the advantages of the new Don Roux Field is that it won’t be surrounded by a track, so the fans will be closer to the game.
The track also will have a new home. Building it will require the most drastic change to the campus’ landscape. It will overlap the current softball field, Upper Franklin Field, and the gully between Upper Franklin Field and current football practice field. That gully will need to be filled in and leveled. The field inside the track will be grass.
“I think separating the track from the game field is huge,” Fuller said. “It’s going to give my track program an identity — this is their facility, it’s built for them; we’re not trying to squeeze other games in there.”
The Lewiston softball team’s home games will be played at Drouin Field, which was purchased by the City of Lewiston in 2015 and sits north of the Colisee.
Finding places to play
The artificial surfaces should be completed by the summer of 2018. The grass surfaces need an extra year of growing, and are slated to be ready by the 2019 fall sports season.
The 2017-18 seasons will be different, maybe even difficult, for the Lewiston fall and spring sports teams because their home fields will be nonexistent for the entire year.
Fuller has already started working to make sure they aren’t completely homeless.
“For next year, it’s going to be very trying. We’re going to be scattered a little bit,” Fuller said.
He has had discussions with the Bates College athletic department, which has expressed a willingness to help out where it can.
“They’ve been phenomenal, Fuller said. “I can’t say enough good things about the support Bates has given this school. They’ve gone out of their way to help us and talk things through.”
But Bates isn’t an easy solution, especially on weekdays, because it has its own athletic and intramural teams that need the school’s fields for practices and games.
Lewiston Middle School could be used occasionally, but, it also has its own teams that need its fields.
“It’s a giant moving puzzle and we’re just trying to put the pieces in,” Fuller said.
Drouin Field will be relied on heavily next year, Fuller said. Another option is the Randall Road ball fields. They’re technically for softball, but Fuller said they can be used for multiple sports.
Chabot lauded Fuller for being proactive at finding places for home games. There is only so much that can be done right now, though, because the 2017-18 schedules haven’t been released.
Adding to the scheduling complications is that the Maine Principals’ Association, which governs high school sports in the state, is in a classification year, so the Lewiston Blue Devils teams don’t even know exactly who they will be playing next year.
Once the classification plan is announced and the 2017-18 schedules are released, Fuller said the scheduling process will be “rapid-fire.” First, he’ll meet with Bates to see how much it can help, and then take it from there.
“It’s tough, but we’ll do everything we can,” Fuller said. “I think Bates will be willing to help us out. If it doesn’t, I think that we’re going to have to find some other alternatives. It’s not like we’re without in this community. We’re going to find a place, and we’ll be fine.”
However, Fuller said, “it may entail not having as many home games, and that’s going to be hard.”
Land exchange
The process of preparing for the construction of the school and the athletic complex is subject to constant approval, revision and compromise.
One issue that has arisen is with the federal government. When it was built, the land for Lewiston athletic complex was part of a grant that stipulated the space always be for recreational use. Since the football field, which sits on Franklin Pasture, will be part of the new elementary school campus, there needs to be an exchange of that land for another recreational space in the city.
“The big hiccup, and they’re working through it, is Franklin Pasture; the money from that grant for the federal government,” Chabot said.
The state is covering the cost for most of the complex, but not all of it. For instance, the state will build restrooms attached to the concession stand at the new Don Roux Field — no more outhouses — but Lewiston High School needs to pay for everything in the restrooms.
There are also some extra features Lewiston High School wants to add, such as bleachers for the track and a concourse in between the high school and the new Don Roux Field. Also, instead of a chain-link fence backstop for the baseball and softball fields, Fuller wants to install netting that will make it easier to watch games.
These extras will require additional fundraising by the school.
“They’re going to give us the basic shell — and I don’t want to say basic, it’s a very good shell — but there are some upgrades I think need to happen, and some changes. We’re short a couple things we want to add,” Fuller said.
“The basic plan, the basic design that the state always gives other schools, we just want to upgrade it a little bit. Just to give it a little bit of a touch that’s maybe something different that somebody hasn’t seen.”
Along with improving the athletic experience for Lewiston teams, another hope is that the upgrades will put Lewiston High School into consideration as a site for tournaments and championships.
“Building something with an artificial surface, I think we’re going to be an attractive site,” Fuller said. “We’re in the center of the state, I think we’re kind of in between the north and south, and I think we have a great facility in terms of parking — there’s plenty of parking on this campus, so if we have a big event, it’s going to be easy for people to come here, park and walk to the stadium.”
The next year or two will be a sacrifice for the Lewiston sports programs, but one that Fuller and Chabot believe will pay off.
“If parents and the athletes can be a little patient with things, and understand that this is temporary,” Fuller said, “and in the long-term, I think what we are going to get is really pretty impressive.”
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