Nashua-Plainfield School’s ball diamond project gets contractor

School Board approves $3.279 million bid from Waterloo firm for Plainfield complex 

By Bob Fenske, Of the Nashua Reporter

It took longer than expected, but Nashua-Plainfield Community School’s dream of a new baseball and softball complex took a big step toward reality last week.

At its meeting Tuesday evening, the School Board opened bids for a second time for the complex proposed to be built at the site of the old Plainfield school building.

And this time, unlike this past spring, the bids were deemed within the district’s means.

“We’ve got a project, we’ve got a contractor and we’re going to have a nice complex,” Nashua-Plainfield Superintendent Todd Liechty said Wednesday. “I don’t know if it’s a sense of relief, but it does feel good – really good – to take the next step.”

The School Board approved accepting a bid from Peters Construction of Waterloo for $3.279 million to build the complex that will include a high school baseball diamond, a high school softball diamond and two youth fields.

Although that’s about $280,000 more than the district had budgeted for the project, Liechty said he’s confident that with a fundraising committee in place, the extra money can be raised.

Having a bid accepted should make it easier to raise the rest of the required funds, he said.

“They don’t have to worry about giving the money, us not being able to do it and then wondering if they’ll get their money back,” Liechty said.

Currently, the Huskies play their home softball games in Plainfield and their home baseball dates are in Nashua. And the current baseball diamond – on land owned by the Big 4 Fair Board – is the only one in the Top of Iowa Conference without lights.

The district put together a plan for a new joint baseball and softball complex in Plainfield, and voters in March overwhelmingly approved selling general-obligation bonds to fund the project.

Those funds will be paid back through Nashua-Plainfield’s SAVE Fund, which means property taxes in the district won’t be affected by the project.

But in May, when bids were first opened this spring, district officials experienced sticker shock as the low bid came in around $4.5 million, 50 percent higher than the engineer’s estimate for the complex.

The plans were revamped and a restriction requiring the project to be finished by the start of the 2024 ball diamond seasons was removed. Bidding in the fall also likely helped because contractors are looking to fill up their schedules for the following year.

Peters Construction officials told the district they plan on beginning construction next month.

“If we have a late winter and an early spring we have a shot at getting it done by the time we play next summer,” Liechty said, “I don’t know how good it is because we live in northern Iowa, where it gets cold and stays cold for a long time.”

Baseball will be fine, but if construction is still ongoing next summer the softball team will be homeless.

“Ask me in December after the ground freezes and then I’ll have an answer for you,” Liechty said. “Our hope is going to be that we can play in Plainfield next year, but we’ll put out heads together and figure something out if we can’t.

“Right now, I think we’re all happy that we have a contractor hired and the work is going to begin,” he said.