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A long-awaited draft Field Needs Assessment will be presented at the June 2 meeting of the Sudbury Park and Recreation Commission. The draft report has been made available to the public on the commission’s website here.
The report provides evaluations of the conditions of all of Sudbury’s recreational fields and courts, outlines usage data as reported by local sports leagues and user groups, and makes a series of recommendations for near-term and long-term improvements and optimizations for Sudbury’s fields.
The prevailing theme of the recommendations was to centralize major sports at specific field complexes. For example, Featherland Park would be the primary, centralized location for youth baseball, Feeley Field would be the centralized location for softball, and Haskell Field would be the primary location for soccer. The draft report also recommends adding lighting at several fields, to ease scheduling limitations experienced by multiple sports groups.
The report highlights Featherland/Broadacres Farm baseball complex, the Frank Feeley softball complex, and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School as top-three priorities for addressing the most acute field needs in the near-term. (Document Page 20)
The report offers multiple options for investment at each recreation site, but the prevailing needs are consistent: baseball is reporting a shortage of fields relative to demand, softball is reporting field drainage challenges and scheduling challenges, and virtually all sports reported some desire for lighted fields and/or synthetic turf fields to ease scheduling and maximize playing time in the elbow seasons.
While the report is still in draft form, some of the recommendations would bring about significant changes to existing field complexes. One recommendation suggested converting the the softball field at Featherland to a baseball field, and converting the lighted baseball field at Feeley to a 60′ softball field.
Meanwhile, one recommendation suggests adding two baseball fields at Broadacres Farm (between the parking lot for the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail and the upper Featherland baseball field along Morse Road) while another suggestions converting the baseball field at Haskell Field into a soccer field.
Davis Field is also subject to some major recommendations, including the addition of a fenced dog park, and options for adding one or three rectangular fields.
Other recommendations included significant maintenance investments in Sudbury Public Schools fields, which were largely classified as being in poor or fair condition, as well as repairs to parking lots and tennis courts. While there a multiple recommended paths forward for each field complex, the plan is still a draft. The Park and Recreation Commission will host a meeting on Monday, June 2 to hear the presentation, provide feedback, and potentially use the meeting as a springboard to gather additional public input.