AMHERST — With a new track and accompanying playing fields at Amherst Regional High School complete, Amherst officials are committing the money necessary for maintaining the $4.11 million-complex for the next two years.
Town Council at its March 9 meeting, by a unanimous vote, agreed to appropriate $150,000 from free cash that will likely be used by the regional schools to hire a private contractor to take care of the facility.
The project, built by M.J. Cataldo Inc. of Littleton, includes a new eight-lane track, a north-south playing field with a natural grass surface and a second new playing field, also with grass, west of the track.
Amherst Finance Director Sean Mangano told the Finance Committee that the recently finished work is still under warranty, protecting the town and schools from any damage to the grass this spring. The care for the site will ultimately be the responsibility for the regional entity that is made up of Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury.
Mangano said the expectation is that the schools will contract out and manage the maintenance, similar to how maintenance has been handled at the Wolf Swamp Park Field in Longmeadow.
“This is essentially to preserve this brand new asset and make sure it stays in good shape for the next couple of years,” Mangano said.
It also buys the region time to figure out how to approach maintenance long term. The regional schools were able to remove this expense from the fiscal year 2027 budget, bringing in a spending plan that protects teaching positions and which the four towns appear ready to support.
A memo from Bockelman, Mangano and Comptroller Tanya Wdowiak offered more details: “In order to take proper care of this investment, the town is proposing to enter into an intermunicipal agreement with the regional schools for a period of two years. The purpose of such agreement being to provide the town or the regional schools with supplementary funding to maintain the new fields starting this spring through the end of the fall in 2027.”
There is some uncertainty around when the complex will be available for student athletes. Amherst Regional has been unable to host track meets since 2018, due to the deteriorating latex-covered asphalt track built in 1999, and the interior field has also been in rough shape, with divots and holes and is often wet.
Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek, who helped spearhead the development of the project with Bob Peirent, the special capital projects coordinator for the town, said sports teams are ready to begin using the site, though no decisions have yet been made.
Town Manager Paul Bockelkman said the school’s athletic director will likely be responsible for scheduling athletic contests and determining when it is appropriate and inappropriate to do so.
There are also questions about when the public will be able to access the site.
Mangano said they will remain open to public use at certain times because Community Preservation Act money was part of the funding sources.
Amherst initially provided $1.76 million from its CPA account, with Leverett contributing $176,000, Shutesbury $136,000 and Pelham $110,500 from those accounts.
Other sources of funding include $1.5 million in debt approved by the regional schools, $900,000 in free cash from Amherst and a $104,840 donation from the Amherst Hurricane Boosters. The Boosters intended to give more, but its fundraising was largely contingent on an interior field with synthetic turf, eventually removed over objections from health boards due to possible forever chemicals contamination.