Brickyard Park Opening Postponed: Clay Hill Ballfields Weather Setback

THIS STORY COURTESY THE KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS
PICTURES BY CALVIN

By Matthew Lane
mlane@timesnews.net


KINGSPORT — February was not kind to Brickyard Park and March hasn’t been much better.
As a result of two weeks of snow last month and days of rain this month, the Eastman Invitational tournament scheduled for the first weekend in April at Brickyard Park will have to be moved to other facilities.

Chris McCartt, assistant city manager for administration, said this was the message that came out of a recent meeting between city officials and Denark Construction, the Knoxville-based company that is building Brickyard Park.

SEVERAL INCHES OF SNOW BLANKETED THE BALLFIELDS AT CLAY HILL IN BRICKYARD PARK SEVERAL WEEKS AGO

“A meeting took place last week and the consensus was, while they’re working as hard as they possibly can, the weather has left the fields extremely wet,” McCartt said. “We were hoping to be able to meet our goal of having the fields up and ready by the first of April. At this point, that apparently is not going to be realistic.”

Denark Construction has been working at a steady clip since last April to build Kingsport’s new ball field complex, Brickyard Park. The fields are located on a portion of the old General Shale property along Industry Drive and are a replacement for the now gone Eastman ball fields on Wilcox Drive.

Brickyard Park will have four ball fields in a wagon-wheel design, with a centrally located two-story building for scoring, concessions and restrooms, along with 245 parking spaces. Grading has been done for a future fifth field and the property has room for an additional 78 parking spaces if necessary.

Two of the fields will be 325 feet, one championship field will be 350 feet with terrace seating, while the fourth field comes in at 300 feet.

Other than some minor work done to the scoring tower, no earthmoving equipment was on site and in operation since Feb. 16, the day of the first major snowfall.

WILLIE HODGES, RIGHT, AND JACK PIERCE LOOK OVER THE BALLFIELDS THAT WILL BE NEXT DOOR TO THEM IN RIVERVIEW

“February was about a complete loss,” McCartt said. “We knew going into the month of February, if it was a carbon copy of January, we would not meet the objective we set for ourselves.”

Though the weather has not been kind, McCartt said Denark is staying within budget. The cost of the project (including site work and construction) is approximately $6.9 million.

In January, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen received an optimistic update on the project, how construction was moving at a strong and steady pace, and that city officials were holding out hope of meeting the April deadline.

Of course, the construction schedule from the start has been contingent upon the weather, especially given how much of it was to be done during the winter months.

 The fields have been graded and three are ready for sod, the poles around the fields have been installed and the two-story building is up. Kingsport needs about 30 days of good weather to allow the sod to take root and knit together.

Once the weather improves, the first thing Denark will do is the sod work, then the concrete work around the scoring tower and then pave the entrance road and parking lot.

In the meantime, the Eastman Invitational will have to be shuffled to other fields within town, mainly to nearby Domtar Park.

“We met with the tournament organizer and we’re working on some other options. Some games will be played at Domtar Park and we’re looking to move other games elsewhere,” McCartt said.

The Eastman Invitational is a girl’s high-school-aged softball tournament and is now in its 19th year. Brian Tate, an assistant principal at Dobyns-Bennett High School and organizer of the tournament, said he expects 40 teams to compete in this year’s event.

McCartt said the fields at Brickyard Park would likely be ready for a second tournament scheduled at the facility in late April.