The Seaside School District came to last Monday’s City Council hoping to redevelop Broadway Field to meet the needs of athletes’ softball play.

“The recommendation is to use an underutilized portion of Broadway Field as many of the facilities are already in place,” Susan Penrod, the district superintendent, said.

The field was developed in 2013 on land owned by the city, used by the school district and maintained by the Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District. All three entities are party to future decisions.

But in order to meet those requirements, the Herche Family Training Facility, designed and developed with donations and contributions from the community, may complicate matters.

According to an agreement signed in March 2020 between the park district, the city and Seaside Kids, Inc., any proposed change to usage or policies governing usage of the batting facility other than scheduling will require approval by the city, the park district and Seaside Kids.

The facility — built at a cost of $244,000 — would have to be moved.

“I hope there’s some thought in planning more so than what has gone into this operation so far,” the batting facility’s project manager Chris Corder said. “You cannot pick up a pole barn and move it. I’ll repeat that: You cannot pick up a pole barn and move it. There are 90 yards of concrete in the floor. It just doesn’t work that easily.”

The school district’s request to develop a softball field comes in response to a complaint filed against the district by the Office of Civil Rights alleging discrimination against female athletes on the basis of sex and equality in the athletics programs at the high school.

“The Seaside School District received a complaint from the Office of Civil Rights alleging discrimination that that our softball field was not comparable to our baseball field,” Penrod said Monday. “In July of last year, they resurfaced and said to the district, ‘Do you want to resolve this?’ We said, ‘Of course we do. We want to work together to build a great softball field for our athletes.’ So we then entered into a resolution agreement and are required to complete those agreements and the softball field next June.”

To meet the compliance deadline, the school district investigated three sites: Broadway Field, fields on Wahanna Road, and a property north of the former high school known as the “North 40.”

The Wahanna Road site was eliminated after studies revealed wetlands and poor quality soil.

Land at the former Seaside High School on U.S. Highway 101 and North Holladay offers a centralized location and has been viewed favorably by the city’s parks advisory committee. But the site would require utilities, power and earthwork — which Broadway Field already has.

In April, the school district board voted to revisit Broadway Field as their preferred site.

Consultant Zach Stokes of ZCS Engineering, on behalf of the school district, determined that an upgraded softball field and baseball field wouldn’t fit on the property as laid out now.

“Even if we use a minimum-size softball field, it wouldn’t fit on this site with all the other parameters that we had to work through,” Stokes told the council. “It turns out that moving the training facility is actually a pretty reasonable idea, and accomplishes a handful of goals. From an engineering standpoint and a practicality standpoint, the Broadway field modification appears to be a really good option for the district and for the city.”

The city’s public works director Dale McDowell agreed. “The Broadway proposition is actually the best overall and if you think it’s difficult to move a building like that, it’s actually pretty simple,” he said. “It’s not that big a deal.”

Mayor Jay Barber called Broadway Field the best of the three options in terms of expense and usability.

Corder, who is a member of the school board, urged greater thought and design planning before council action.

“We need to think ahead and plan and make a good design so that we can satisfy our community members and our kids and people for generations to come,” he said. “I wish we could put it on roller skates and scoot it around. But that’s kind of an afterthought and that’s kind of that’s a big part of my point: It’s an afterthought.”

While councilors and Mayor Jay Barber said the Broadway Field location was the best of the three proposed locations for a new softball field, they asked for additional input.

The plan should go to a public hearing, Councilor Randy Frank said. “We need input from a lot of people,” he said. “Hopefully when we bring this forward to the public, open it up we’ll have a lot of time for discussion and see how people feel.”