Stotzky Park soccer fields to get a makeover this spring

Stotzky Park’s soccer fields will get a makeover this spring.

The Riverhead Town Board voted in special session Thursday to spend $339,996 to revamp the fields, located on the north end of the municipal park.

The fields should be ready for use again in August, in time for fall youth soccer league action, said Councilman George Gabrielsen.

Fencing will be installed around the perimeter of the fields, which will be locked and inaccessible except for authorized youth league use, Gabrielsen said.

The soccer fields have taken a beating in recent years as the number of adult games being played there has increased, Supervisor Sean Walter said.

“The adults kicked the tar out of that turf,” Walter said.

The town plans to relocate adult soccer to fields at the new town park in Calverton, slated to be opened to the public by summer. The town plans to mow an open field located east of the newly built baseball and softball diamonds for use by adult soccer players, among others.

The cost of the Stotzky Park project is to be paid out of the town’s special recreation fund, which is funded solely by developers’ fees.

“This is not costing the taxpayers anything,” Gabrielsen said.

The winning bidder, Bimasco Incorporated of Hauppauge, will install underground irrigation and drainage, new sod and fencing. Work will begin in about 30 days, Gabrielsen said, and will be wrapped up in July. That will allow a month or so for the fields to rest before PAL soccer begins in the fall, he said.

New park at EPCAL to finally open?

Recreation fee money will also be used to complete work necessary to open up four ball fields in Calverton.

The ball fields were originally phase one of a $15-million 62-acre park plan advanced by the town recreation committee in 2004, which had been chaired by Gabrielsen prior to his election to the Town Board in 2009. The original plan was for lighted baseball and softball fields, soccer fields, tennis, volleyball and basketball courts, restrooms and hiking and exercise trails.

After litigation between the town and the state Pine Barrens Commission delayed the commencement of construction, the town got the four ball fields completed last year. But they have sat unused since then, because the county health department did not approve of the town’s plans to use a temporary septic system for restroom facilities at the site. The county requires the town to build bathrooms that hook up to the existing sewage treatment plant at the Calverton Enterprise Park, which was cost-prohibitive.

The health department still hasn’t signed off on the septic system, officials said yesterday, but has agreed to it in principle. Riverhead officials are hopeful the approval will come in time to open the ball fields for use this season.

Cash-strapped town officials have put the rest of the park plans, including lights for the new fields, on the shelf.

The board at yesterday’s special meeting also awarded a bid to complete the Route 25 entrance to the Calverton park. Corazzini Asphalt of Cutchogue will complete the job at a cost of $44,267. That expense will also be paid out of the town’s recreation fund.

Once the entrance is completed and the park is opened, residents will also have access to a new hiking and bike trail built at the park with a state grant, Gabrielsen said.