City unveils overhaul plan for Cass Park
Mayor proposes construction of new football facility to replace Barry Field
WOONSOCKET – Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt signaled the launch of the next grand opus of her administration Monday, unveiling plans for an ambitious overhaul of Cass Park.
The plan includes 13 individual features, but the centerpiece and by far most costly is the creation of a replacement for Barry Memorial Field, home of the Woonsocket High School Villa Novans football squad.
The mayor says it doesn’t make any sense for the football field to be located several miles from the high school when there’s plenty of room at 60-acre Cass Park, right next door.
“Nearly every school system in the state has a football field at their school or in close proximity,” says the mayor. “This is a feature of the project we’d like to move forward with to give our students the same benefits.”
The plan received a generally warm welcome when it was presented publicly for the first time Monday during a joint meeting of the Planning Board and the City Council. But critics are already calling the mayor out for proposing a new football field before it’s
clear whether the city has the legal authority to market Barry Field for commercial development – an option Baldelli-Hunt is exploring.
“I want the Barry Field situation to be resolved first,” said Councilman Garrett Mancieri. “Let’s make sure we can sell that land or do something with it before we go ahead and move the football field to Cass Park. It’s the most costly item in the plan.”
But the mayor says no dice. She doesn’t even characterize the proposal as a case of “moving” Barry Field. In her view, it’s a replacement for an outmoded facility, and she intends to pursue the project regardless of how the legal questions surrounding Barry Field are eventually resolved.
“This is a project we’re looking to move forward with whether or not Barry Field can be used in some other fashion,” she said.
At issue are protective covenants restricting the use of Barry Field for certain student and recreation-related purposes. Accompanied by Special Projects Coordinator Joel Mathews, who designed the Cass Park overhaul, and City Solicitor Michael Marcello, the mayor said there has never been a definitive legal interpretation regarding the scope or malleability of the covenants, but it is an issue that they intend to explore.
A copy of the 1925 deed in the archives of Woonsocket Call says the land was conveyed “for the purpose of an athletic field and playground for the pupils of the public schools in the city of Woonsocket, said use, management and control to be exercised only through and by the school committee...or such person or body as may substantially have and exercise by the law the authority now vested in the school committee...”
The deed says the caretakers of the parcel may allow it to be leased for temporary “exhibitions and instructive entertainments,” however.
The 22-acre parcel was donated to the city by the long-defunct Woonsocket Agricultural Horticultural and Industrial Society on Christmas Eve in 1925. The parcel was named in honor of a noted physician of the day.
City officials have explored the notion of repurposing Barry Field at least once previously since the mid 1980s. The changing dynamics of the retail economy in the city are driving yet another look: While big box merchants increasingly shun the Diamond Hill Road commercial zone, Barry Field lies squarely in the orbit of the city’s main competitor for retail expansion, North Smithfield’s Dowling Village.
The replacement football field is just one feature of a comprehensive plan for the 60-acre Cass Park, the singlebiggest tract of recreational land in the city. Among other things, the plan calls for:
• Two new basketball courts
• Enhancement and beautification of Cass Pond, a troutstocked fishing area that has succumbed to siltation and oxygen-depletion problems. Plans call for a fountain-like filtration system and some dredging.
• new state-of-the-art playground for children ages six and up.
• removal of Quonset huts and expansion of Renaud Field. The home of the WHS varsity baseball team has already gotten a head start on improvements, with an infusion of $250,000 in grant money, most of it for new nighttime lighting.
• improvements to the quarter-mile outdoor track
• new area for track and field events, including shot put, broad jump and pole vault
The “Cass Park Master Plan,” outlined in a folder available for public perusal at the Department of Planning and Development, does not put a price tag or a timeline on the project. While officials acknowledge the start-to-finish cost will be considerable, they say they intend to apply for grants from various state and federal sources to bankroll the project and chip away at the work as funds become available.
“Going back to the turn of the century, the park was known as Central Park, and has been considered over the years to be the principal park of the city,’ the report says. “Today, the park is in need of a major makeover, with new facilities to be constructed, and existing areas requiring substantial renovation.”
City Council President Albert G. Brien praised the mayor for rolling out “an ambitious plan,’ but he says there are still questions about feasibility and funding. He said the city may face unexpected regulatory hurdles because much of the park is built on protected freshwater wetlands.
“I will give the administrative A-plus for effort,” he said. “We don’t know where the funding is going to come from and we don’t what the wetlands will allow.”
The announcement comes as the final touches are about to be applied to the signature project of her administration so far – the completion of a $2.6 million makeover of World War II Memorial Park.
The Cass Park plan was drafted entirely in-house by Mathews – a landscape architect – who says the city can also reduce costs by using volunteers and in-house labor under the direction of Public Works Director Steve D’Agostino.
The only number officials agree on is that the football field, as they envision it – with synthetic turf, and state-ofthe-art illumination and newp concession stands – will account for 80 percent of the project costs. They remaining 20 percent will likely go far enough to finish every other aspect of the master plan.
“Its geographical location is extremely poor as it is located on the opposite side of the City from Woonsocket High School,” the report says. “This has resulted in incurring large unneeded bussing and transportation costs over the years. The shower facilities are in great need of restoration.”