The project to modernize and upgrade softball facilities at Towson University’s athletic complex will not include conduits for future stadium lights, university officials said today. However, it remains the university’s intention that lights will be added to the softball complex at some point in the future.
Last Monday evening, university officials held the latest in a series of several informational meetings with citizens from the Rodgers Forge community to discuss final plans for the softball facility improvement project. The impetus for the project is to enable the university to comply with federal Title IX regulations.
“It was clear to me that the primary community concern was the installation of conduits for lighting,” said Towson Universit
y President Dr. Maravene Loeschke, who attended the two-hour briefing. “Since lights are not part of this current project, we will use this time to explore all options for feeding electricity for lighting the softball facility. We have chosen to hold off on the conduits because we want to continue to work cooperatively with the Rodgers Forge community and continue to be good neighbors.”
There is no timetable for installing future conduits or lights, since the university currently has no funding in place for lighting, said the university’s director of facilities planning, Kris Phillips.
Over the past eight months, university officials have committed resources, time and effort to make accommodations in response to community concerns about the project. The university agreed to shift the location of the field by 20 feet, reduce the height of the press box from 30 to 23 feet above field level, utilize state-of-the-art acoustical design to reduce noise impacts, maximize the height of the backstop to help prevent foul balls from leaving university property, provide an additional 130 feet of retractable netting along the property line as further foul ball control, move the concession stand away from the community border, and provide additional landscape buffering by planting two rows of 10-foot trees between university property and the community that will grow to a height of 20 feet in the next few years.
Construction on the softball improvement project is scheduled to begin next month, Phillips said.
