There is a ticking timer on the future of Memorial Field. 

On the track’s wearing oval, weeds poke through the cracks. The surface won’t last past the next two years, according to city Parks and Recreation Director David Gill.

Once the track reaches the end of its life, either Concord teams that use it will have to make other arrangements, or a few hundred thousand dollars would have to be spent to revive it.

The track could be resurfaced for safe use, but the full Memorial Field renovation calls for a rebuild from the underground up that includes changing its size. 

 “Do you do a $100,000 or $200,000 repair to a track that you may dig up four years after that?” Gill said to the city council, presenting the master plan for renovations to the field complex Tuesday night.

While the flooding and other deterioration at Memorial Field most acutely impacts student athletics, several city councilors put renovation of Memorial Field near the top of their priority list when it comes to major capital projects, and they want to see some commitments from the school board so that plans can progress forward. 

“To me, this is a priority project,” At-Large Councilor Nathan Fennessy said. “I think we should be trying to expedite it as much as possible, and if we can get the school board to join us — whether it’s 50-50 or whatnot — that would be ideal.” 

Fred Keach, another citywide councilor, was firmer: Because this new vision for the complex is tailored to the needs of the Concord School District, he wants a commitment from the board that it will at least evenly split the costs of the full project. Moving ahead with the final phase of design and securing permitting poses an additional $1.5 million investment and would take about a year.

“I would hope for at least a 50% commitment,” Keach said. “If we don't receive that, or at least an understanding of that, at this point I don't see any need to go forward with this type of model.” 

This call for commitment from the school board comes as it faces its own capital project conundrum: Just a week ago, voters approved an amendment to the school district charter that would require the board to put any relocation of the middle school up for a ballot vote. While the board sees the safety and quality of Memorial Field as critical, Board President Pam Walsh said Wednesday, that members haven’t made any clear statements about what they’d like to see happen with the complex.

Memorial Field as a city park dates back almost 100 years, but for much of that history, it’s also been the home to Concord High School sports. Last year, city and school leaders agreed to split the cost of preliminary designs for a renovation of the complex, which has long been dogged by regular flooding and parking issues.

The product of that design process is a two-phased, $28.5 million master plan to remake the facility, which would replace the track and all the fields and courts on-site, and rebuild the drainage systems between and beneath them. It also would add more parking and better car circulation, plus a fieldhouse with bathrooms and storage. Two new artificial turf fields are also in the plans. Those additions and upgrades would make the complex usable for major state competitions. 

The track’s expiration date looms, but that’s more of an issue for the school district than it is for the city — as City Manager Tom Aspell underscored. 

“We don't have a track team, the school district has a track team,” he said.

Walsh noted the poor conditions at Memorial Field mean the school district is already versed in making alternative playing arrangements.

The real timeline troubles for Memorial Field lurk in the now-muddied waters of Concord’s middle school project. 

Plans developed over the last year for a new middle school in East Concord include a new track and multiple field facilities at that location. But the charter amendments that passed on Election Day requiring the school board to get voter sign-off on that relocation has added another wrinkle to the process.

If the public ultimately convinces or even forces the board to rebuild Rundlett Middle School where it currently is in South Concord, the conditions at Memorial Field become more critical.  

Rebuilding the middle school where it currently is would mean timing the projects so the fields at both the middle and high school were not under construction at the same time.

“You would not want to have the fields at Rundlett and Memorial Field offline in the same four-year window,” Gill said. The city doesn’t have the capacity to handle losing even part of both facilities at the same time.” 

Which was why Fennessy said he wanted to hit the gas. 

“We could potentially do a phase one ... before they even get to whatever they’re going to do with the middle school project,” he said. “If we can figure out what we want to do and get them on board I think we should be trying to do that as quickly as we can.”

Walsh said that splitting the costs roughly evenly has been the board’s understanding from the start, but there could be some details to be negotiated about how field revenues — they currently all go to the city, which maintains the fields — are used to help pay off the bond on the project. The board shares concerns about the conditions at the complex and the complication of planning around the middle school, she said, but she framed accelerating plans as easier said than done.

“Right now we have an outline,” Walsh said. “But we have to have something that both bodies can take to a vote.”

Both city councilors and school board members, when getting briefed on design developments from Gill and project architects and engineers over the last month, have wondered whether it is possible to address just the most dire drainage issues without committing to the full renovation. 

An engineer with VHB and a landscape architect with Huntress Sports explained to city leaders how the renovations begin with the drainage improvements: Fixing the system is woven into the work that would be done to the parking lot, the track and the fields.

As Aspell put it, “You can’t really do the drainage without doing the fields.”

Unless a meeting of the two bodies is scheduled sooner, public talks between the council and the board on what to do next may happen when the joint city council-school board committee reconvenes in January, according to Mayor Byron Champlin. Merrimack Valley school leaders will also be there, which could be key for setting off-site plans for Concord teams in the next few years. 

Concord Superintendent Kathleen Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com