Fairfield school plans new concession stand, bathrooms, batting cages at middle school

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Community School District is moving forward on a plan to build a new structure south of the Fairfield Middle School that will house a concession stand, bathrooms and two batting cages.

The new concession stand will be located just beyond the left field fence of the softball diamond, just south of the tennis courts and just north of the baseball field. Fairfield Activities Director Jeff Courtright said the ball fields do not have either a concession stand or a permanent structure for bathrooms, and instead having been relying on portable toilets the last few years.

“There’s no doubt people are anxious to get a new bathroom facility out there,” Courtright said. “We’ve heard from the community that they’d like it to be a priority, and not to have to go another summer with porta potties.”

The school used to have a concession stand/bathroom located just beyond the right field fence of the softball diamond, which was used during high school softball and baseball games. However, the 2020 pandemic brought massive changes to summer sports that year, and the concession stand and bathrooms were not used at all.

The following year, when restrictions were easing, school officials went to open the concession stand and discovered it had deteriorated noticeably since it was last used in 2019.

“We noticed leaks, and the concrete on the floor had cracked and was moving,” Courtright said. “Plus, our bathrooms were not the most ideal for our crowd sizes. The men’s bathroom had one urinal and a toilet, and the women’s had two toilets. We also lacked storage for our grills and the stuff to prepare the fields. The building was not fitting our needs.”

The district decided to tear down that old concession building with the hopes of building a new one in the near future. Courtright said the process has taken longer than expected, especially since the district didn’t realize that new laws have made new construction more expensive by mandating a large number of bathrooms.

“We had to have so many bathrooms based on our permanent bleachers, so we couldn’t rebuild it on the exact same site,” Courtright said. “We needed a bigger space.”

Courtright said that, after the district decided it would need a new building in a new space, officials started contemplating other needs, such as indoor batting cages. The grounds already have two batting cages for softball and baseball each, but they’re exposed to the elements, so can’t be used on a cold or rainy day. At the same time, Courtright said the district recognizes that indoor batting cages will make the bids more expensive, and if the bids come back too high, the district might have to leave out the indoor batting cages for this construction, and raise money for them down the road.

Courtright said the district hopes to move construction along in a timely fashion so the new concession stand and bathrooms can be ready for the start of the 2024 baseball and softball season.

“The last couple of years, we’ve had to bring in 10 porta potties, and that’s not an ideal situation,” Courtright said. “Porta potties in the summer get a little stinky.”

Courtright said the district is looking into replacing another building that it had to tear down a few years ago, the concession stand and bathrooms on the visitors’ side of Trojan Stadium. Courtright said that, since the baseball and softball fields don’t have any bathrooms or concessions, they were made a priority. The district is looking into the cost of replacing the visitors’ concession stand and bathrooms at Trojan Stadium, though Courtright said it will all come down to cost.

“We’ll have to ask ourselves if the cost makes sense given it will be used four or five times per year,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for visiting fans to walk to the home side to use the bathroom. If it’s not feasible to put new bathrooms in, we could still build something for the coaches and media that need space. And obviously, we could always use more storage.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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