Port Coquitlam has three diamonds in the rough, and that’s not good.
The high cost of fixing up the baseball fields at Thompson Park that are “sinking” has the city looking for a new place to play ball.
Thompson Park, on PoCo's south side, has a long history of settlement issues. The diamonds were built over a bog backfilled with wood chips that has decomposed and settled over time. The results are inconsistent and uneven playing surfaces, fencing and facilities.
Last year, PoCo council approved design work and a geotechnical analysis so the fields could be upgraded but discovered the situation was much worse than anticipated.
The city initially set aside $800,000 for the project but the cost projections came back much higher. Even if the budget were doubled, said a report to the city’s finance and budget committee Tuesday, the fields would face significant challenges down the line.
The committee accepted the city staff’s recommendation to spend $120,000 on a new fence and irrigation system this year and $30,000 annually for the next five years to address year-to-year problems while the city looks for a new place to play ball.
“No matter how far we dig down and replace the material, the material deep down underneath it is not strong enough to support the material on top,” said Kristen Dixon, PoCo's director of engineering and public works.
Coun. Glenn Pollock, who is chair of the city’s healthy community committee, said going ahead with the project would be “throwing good money after bad.”
David Bird, vice-president of PoCo Minor Baseball, said during games on Thompson’s biggest diamond, it’s difficult to determine where hard-hit balls are going to bounce because the ground is so uneven. As well, the fences on two of the diamonds are as wavy as a water slide.
“It’s just not very safe sometimes. Now when it rains, it’s really bad, it creates a lot of puddles,” Bird said.
Bird, who helps coach a regional under-18 team, the Tri-City Thunder, that he won’t let practise on the field, said he has even seen ducks on the pop-up ponds, and that’s not a reference to the bases being loaded.
“Last year, we had a tournament and in right field, the puddle on one of the diamonds was about four inches. It was about 20 feet by 20 feet but you couldn’t see it from the dugouts. We had to drain it and tape it off. It wasn’t very good looking,” he said.
Bird’s not surprised the ground is unstable. His parents told him when the diamonds were built more than 30 years ago trucks would get stuck and have to be pulled by bulldozers.
“They found a car buried in the muck,” said Bird. “That’s how bad it was back then.”
He also said PoCo Minor Baseball has lost some young players to the Coquitlam Little League, which plays out Mackin Park, because of the conditions at Thompson Park.
The report said to replace the fields, the city would need about 10 acres and the cost would be upwards of $1.5 million. And that sticker price does not include washrooms, change rooms, fencing, parking and other amenities, or the cost of purchasing land, if necessary.
“We don’t have anything in our [land] inventory that would be an exact replica to our site,” said Dixon.
Bird admitted building on any city property he has looked at would mean other sports, such as soccer and softball, would suffer and he doesn’t want to see that.
Dixon and Pollock said one option could be to partner with School District 43 to build a field. Bird suggested the lower part of Pitt River middle school where a diamond used to be located.
While the relocation discussions haven’t even begun, Pollock doesn’t want them going on too long.
“I just don’t want baseball to be waiting forever,” Pollock said.
While Dixon said the city hasn’t begun to contemplate how the Thompson site might be repurposed, Pollock said he thinks it should become a passive park.
