The Kenton County Planning Commission approved a public facility review of the new Holmes softball field Thursday evening.
The district broke ground on the field at the end of May, but this week’s meeting served as an opportunity to get details on the actual plans for the construction.
Although the softball field will focus on the high school team, the field itself is located at Glen O. Swing Elementary. Thursday’s review calls for the demolition of much of the old field, including the fencing, dugouts, drainage infrastructure, scoreboard, curb and signage.
Renovation plans call for new bleachers, a scoreboard, bullpen, batting cage, lighting for the field and the parking lot, new walkways, fences, retaining walls and drainage system. The entire field will be synthetic turf, similar to Meinken Field, which serves as the field for the boy’s baseball team.
Publicly owned buildings, such as those within school districts, are not subject to zoning regulations, but public institutions get reviews from the planning commission to ensure projects fit well within the county’s comprehensive plans.
The project had a long and winding journey to breaking ground. Spearheaded in the community largely by the Tom Ellis Athletic Memorial, or TEAM, foundation, the project has taken on more urgency since at least 2020. This was especially in light of a 2023 report from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, which concluded that the district was deficient in its Title IX compliance, specifically as it related to the softball team.
The report said the district had failed to provide equal facilities for girls’ sports, especially softball, because the team’s field at the time paled in comparison to Meinken Field. It suggested the district do all it could to build out facilities for the girls to match the ones provided for the boys.
The report came out around the same time the district was attempting to control costs related to its capital projects. At a board meeting in November 2023, board member Stephen Gastright expressed dismay at the ballooning costs of Holmes High School renovation projects, which at the time consisted of a grouping of several proposed renovations, including the softball field.
Later discussions saw the softball field project separated out from the rest of the proposed construction projects and relocated from its original proposed location on the Holmes campus to Glen O. Swing. The field was later bid out as its own separate project.
County staff members recommended approving the review with some recommendations, namely that lighting should be limited after hours, that the district should consider how the new bleachers may affect parking, and that the district consider lowering the proposed height of the fences from 20 feet to 12 feet. Brad D’Agnillo of the Kleigners Group, an engineering firm that came up with the designs for the field, said the fencing height would be necessary to prevent balls from flying out into the neighborhood.
The renovations are expected to take about six months to complete.
You can view and download design renderings of the new field below.