ORLEANS — A planned $32-million overhaul of recreation facilities and playing fields at Eldredge Park and on the grounds of the Nauset Regional Middle School and Orleans Elementary School has taken a small step forward.
At an Oct. 28 special town meeting, Orleans voters approved spending $850,000 to address safety and maintenance concerns at the park and to fund design and engineering for upgrades that include a renovated playground with a scooter track, a lighted basketball court, and lighted walkways. The vote was 431 to 54.
Those are just a small subset of improvements called for in the first phase of five-phase master recreation plan, which calls for a shared-community-use approach to optimizing use of the land by having the town and schools work together. The plan was developed by design firm Weston & Sampson, with input from representatives of the town and both school districts, and from Nauset Together We Can, a nonprofit group that operates the Finch Skateboard Park.
The plan calls for work to begin on about 2.2 acres of land at Eldredge Park, with future phases progressing to land owned by the regional school district and then to the elementary school. For that to happen, each entity would need to approve paying for work proposed on its respective property.
Highlights of the master plan include a new building that would house the bandstand, restrooms, locker rooms, and school bus operations at Eldredge Park; an expansion of the skateboard park and renovation of tennis courts on land owned by the regional school district; replacement of a gravel track at the middle school with a new six-lane track that features a press box and bleachers; new multi-use playing fields; and lighted access paths throughout, among other things.
The plan does not call for changes to the Eldredge Park ballfield, home to the Orleans Firebirds baseball team.
Orleans Recreation Advisory Committee chair Tracy Murphy told the Independent that she envisions the completed project as a sort of “community center without walls,” where people of multiple generations can enjoy different recreational pursuits, and kids can gather after school into the evening hours.
“We’ve never had this sort of full embrace of goals and vision that we have now,” she said. “It’s exciting, and I’m grateful for it. I think it will be a huge benefit to the town and the broader community.”
The regional school district would be most affected by work laid out in phases two and three of the plan, which would cost about $6.6 million and $6.5 million respectively.
Nauset Regional School Committee chair Judith Schumacher said she and committee member Josh Stewart, along with former member Griffin Ryder, were part of the group that provided input as the plan was being drafted, and that Murphy presented the completed plan at the request of the committee at its September meeting.
“It was well received, I think,” Schumacher said. “There was definitely a benefit to be derived from using that land for the best purposes for all.”
Schumacher said that the regional committee is open to further discussion but that it was not involved in drafting the article that passed at town meeting and has not been approached by the town of Orleans regarding how the plan might be moved forward.
“The region welcomes the opportunity to see how this land may be developed further,” she said.
