New lighting at the Seaside Park baseball field, 13th-14th avenues, Dec. 15, 2023. (Photo: Shorebeat)
Seaside Park officials, having obtained a fresh round of grant funding, will move forward with a plan that will revitalize the borough’s baseball diamond and tackle nagging flooding issues around the park at 13th Avenue.
The borough council last week voted to appoint an engineering firm to draw up plans that will be put out to bid. The plans will call for a resurfacing of the field, an underground drainage retention basin, new base paths and a new backstop, among other aesthetic upgrades. The field will also be re-sodded and graded to look like new.
“It’s a slight elevation and allowing that runoff into the outfield area and some underground,” said Mayor John Peterson. “The project will have a positive impact on the drainage that was coming off the whole site onto 13th Avenue. That was another area affected, so it helps there considerably.”
The borough, Peterson said, recently obtained a $75,000 grant from the state which will defray some of the costs associated with the project. The recreational complex between 13th and 14th avenues has seen numerous upgrades over the past two years, including a new playground donated by a resident, and new LED lighting to replace aging stanchions that had not been operational. Borough officials hope to expand baseball and softball in town, which had long been a strong tradition, including the presence of summer college leagues that brought future Major League Baseball players to the borough before they became household names.
The field became less useful in recent years due to the flooding, however, with managers of the few teams that played there improvising to keep the grounds intact.
“The manager of the league that was there this summer, he had giant push brooms to push the water away from the infield area, so that’s what he’d been doing for quite a while,” said Peterson.
Officials are hoping the field construction project will be completed by next summer, though depending on time estimates, the project may be divided into phases so baseball can be played there next summer.
The 14th Avenue playground in Seaside Park, N.J., Oct. 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)
New lighting at the Seaside Park baseball field, 13th-14th avenues, Dec. 15, 2023. (Photo: Shorebeat)
“We’re hopeful that will be done by the summer, but it’s possible it will be done in pieces because it would have an impact on those who use the facility,” said Peterson. “When they put the retention basins in, it takes out the grass, and we’ll have to re-sod a significant portion of it. For a playing surface, we have to be careful.”
“It might be the safest, best way to do it in phases and keep it open and playable throughout the summer,” he added.
The borough has previously budgeted for the project, meaning no additional borrowing is expected to be necessary to bring the upgrade plan to fruition. Bids will be accepted after the appointed engineering firm, T&M Associates, draws up the specifications. T&M’s design contract was awarded at a rate not to exceed $55,300.
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