EAST PROVIDENCE — Though it wasn’t quite a ringing endorsement, the East Providence Planning Board at its meeting Monday night, May 11, at City Hall gave its conditional support to the proposed construction of an artificial turf field on the high school grounds.
The private-public partnership between the Bayside F.C. youth soccer organization and the School Department previously gained acceptance after some intense negotiations with the School Committee and legal representatives from both sides. The City Council then signed off on the project, but was found to have skipped a step in the approval process.
The Planning Board needed first to take up the matter before the Council could give its formal go-ahead. At Monday’s meeting, the Board expressed concern with the field being built over top of an underground sewer line connecting businesses on Taunton Avenue, specifically the McDonald’s Restaurant, with the main line on Waterman Avenue.
The Planning Board eventually recommended the project move forward, but that Bayside and its developers work with the city to mitigate any potential impact or damage to the sewer line.
In addition, Bayside vice president Tony Vieira, in attendance Monday, said the solicitor’s office had contacted the organization’s counsel to discuss concerns with “some of the verbiage” in the contract agreed upon by the parties.
The goal of putting shovel to ground remains tantalizingly close, though any further delay in the process will likely put a crimp in the proposed opening date of the complex for the start of the 2014-15 fall sports practice schedule at EPHS in late August.
With that in mind, once it receives the report of the Planning Committee the Council expressed interest in holding a special session to review the matter once more prior to its next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, May 19.
Besides construction time, considered to be roughly 90 days, Mr. Vieira said he wasn’t sure if the delay would affect Bayside’s ability to secure the $1.4 million needed for the project from a lender or how it would affect the design and permitting process. He did say, however, his organization remains committed to seeing the project to fruition.
“Although we wish we were able to finalize the deal tonight, we remain hopeful that we will move forward in a positive way in the near future,” Mr. Vieira added. “We’ll get it done.”