A widely anticipated project to create a new baseball facility at Coppo Field in Waveny—an area that appears to passersby as massive piles of dirt behind Lapham Community Center—is on time and on budget, officials said last week.
Construction site of the new baseball stadium at Coppo Field in Waveny—Nov. 12, 2024. Credit: Michael Dinan
The approximately $5 million job—$2 million of which is coming from the town, while the nonprofit New Canaan Athletic Foundation is paying the roughly $3 million balance—started in earnest last month following the approval by municipal funding bodies of a $4,977,685 contract with Canton, Mass.-based Atlantic Sports Group or “ASG.”
“It was actually a very, very tight bid and they [ASG] hit the ground running from day one from the time the selectmen approved it,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told members of the Board of Finance at their regular meeting, held Nov. 12 at Town Hall and via videoconference.
Site drawing for Coppo Field. Specs by Richter & Cegan Inc.
He continued: “If you’ve been out there, you can see that almost the entire footprint is starting to be leveled off. They’ve put in foundations for both dugouts, home and away. Poured those. The breaks started coming back from the concrete testing and they came back well. So that is a good thing. They started working on the drainage system in the perimeter of the field, and then in right field where the stormwater drainage system is going to go, as far as the detention system. And at that point in time they’ll continue to put the drainage in, the subsurface drainage, build up the surface, build up the structure and then get it started ready for turf at that point in time. Their contract is slated to finish on April 1. First pitch is April 1. They haven’t come back and said they needed more time or anything like that. So that’s where we are at, at present. We’re still very early but we’ve had a great first month, month-and-a-half. So we’re hoping the weather holds through the winter. And if it does, we should be in very good shape.”
The comments came during a general update to the finance board on the NCAF-led project, which will bring a new, fully turfed field to serve New Canaan’s youth, middle school and high school programs, including a new varsity field for the Rams (info here on how to support the project).
Mann was joined in addressing the selectmen by NCAF Chair Mike Benevento. Located just west of the water tower at Waveny, Coppo Field is named after Frank Coppo, one of three New Canaan residents who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Construction plans for Coppo Field. Specs by Richter & Cegan Inc.
Mann noted that the original estimate for the project was $6 million, and said the contract came in as one of three highly competitive bids through Sourcewell, a national consortium.
Asked by Board of Finance Chair Todd Lavieri how far the NCAF and town were now through the project and budget. Mann said no invoice has yet been submitted with that type of breakdown but that a hard figure could be provided at a future meeting as more work gets done (Lavieri called for a February update).
“We’ve been able to work, so far, through issues in the field,” Mann said. “Because there are always issues in the field. So far we’ve been able to work through those. And now we’re working through material procurement. We’re in the process now of selecting the turf colors in the design of the turf, and how it’s going to look. We know exactly how the turf is going to be, the manufacturer—we just don’t know exactly how the design is going to play out. That, and some other colors for your masonry and things of that nature that are working through the shop drawings stage. And we haven’t had any glitch there, the turnaround time has been very good—by our consultants, by our landscape designer and our architect and our engineer.”
Those professionals are “all aware that we’re on a tight timeframe, so any turnaround time for shop drawings is very, very critical,” Mann said.
“So they’ve been moving those along, as well, to try to stay ahead so we can get everything ordered and here, so we don’t have to wait for anything,” he said. “The majority of it is just structural items that you need to build the dugout and what have you, the drainage pipe that’s usually readily available. So we haven’t seen a materials-related problem yet, and he [the contractor] hasn’t spoken of it.”
Finance board members asked whether there have been any hiccups or change orders (nothing that’s slowed down progress), whether Superintendent of Buildings Bill Oestmann is project manager (no, Mann is) and how many contractors are there (there’s a lead landscape designer, engineer, architect and site inspection group).
First Selectman Dionna Carlson—who serves as an ex officio Board of Finance member, under the Town Charter—asked whether snow would create a work stoppage.
Mann said it depends on how much snow falls for how long and whether or not the “subgrade” freezes, because if so the dirt can become too clumpy to move around and work with.
“The temperature is going to drive the majority of it, and then the moisture content associated with it,” Mann said.