Bridge to Kramer Fields closer to completion

[rpavideo caption=”After almost four years of delays and construction a bridge connecting Fred Fuller Park to the Kramer Ballfields is nearing completion. It’s taken a little longer and cost a little more than expected. At the same time the construction kept Kent’s athletes from playing on their favorite fields. TV2’s Sean Barie reports.”]RPA_Barie_Shook_KramerFields[/rpavideo]

Bridge issues displace baseball, softball leagues, leave fields unused

By Nick Shook

A drive down Haymaker Parkway heading toward downtown Kent reveals a side street, running parallel with route 59. At one end of that street, “Road Closed” signs have been placed for what may seem like forever to the city’s residents, but fortunately for them — and recreational league participants — the signs are expected to be removed before June.

Beyond the signs restricting traffic down the street stands another, much older sign, reading “Kramer Ballfields”. A walk down the road and around a left-curving bend reveals the Cuyahoga River, and two supports for a bridge that remains incomplete. That bridge, the Harvey Redmond Bridge, and the problems it has encountered in the past five years has kept baseball and softball from being played at the park on the other side of the river: the Kramer Ballfields.

The ballfields are located on what the city calls an “island park,” although it is not an actual island. The park is mostly surrounded by the Cuyahoga River, but the southeastern side is flanked by railroad tracks on property owned by CSX. Kent residents and council members raised the possibility of constructing a temporary gravel entrance across these tracks, but the city came to the conclusion that it could not prove that there was no other alternative for an at-grade crossing.

“A lot of things we heard is ‘why can’t we just access it from the other side of the river, across the railroad tracks?'” Kent City Engineer Jim Bowling said. “The reason why is it’s not our land. It’s CSX’s land, and CSX and any railroad prohibits people from entering their land for safety concerns. If we were to try to build a crossing on that side, they’d make us build a bridge, no different than the one we’re building now.”

The wooden bridge, constructed in 1947, was closed in April 2011 by the Ohio Department of Transportation after it determined damage causing by floating debris and overall deterioration made the bridge a safety concern for those using it to access the fields. Since then, the fields have been uninhabited, a stark contrast from the usage it saw during previous seasons in which 12 baseball and softball leagues of various age ranges used the fields for league games and practices.

Since the bridge’s closing, games and practices have been moved to many area fields, including the Kent City Schools fields, Kent State’s Allerton Sports Complex, Plum Creek Park and Brady Lake’s baseball fields. The renting of Kent State’s complex for adult leagues cost Kent’s Parks and Recreation approximately $10,000 per year, recreation supervisor Nancy Pizzino said.

Public concern grew as time passed after the bridge was closed, and questions were raised over why the project took multiple years to progress, from the closing in 2011 to the bridge’s demolition in September 2013. Grants from ODOT funded much of the project, but took two years for funds to be released to the city in order to commence the demolition and subsequent construction of a new bridge.

“People just couldn’t understand the concept of why we can’t get over to the ballfields, but there’s no other way to get there, there’s only one way,” Pizzino said. “You’re not allowed to cross the railroad tracks. People didn’t understand what was taking so long to build the bridge, but we had money through a grant. There’s processes that have to be done in order to get that done in order to start building it.”

ODOT contributed an initial $797,000 toward the project, and with the  Bowling, parks and recreation director John Idone secured an additional $171,000 from ODOT for the construction of the new overpass. City funding covered the rest of the cost, which amounted to $1,295,226.70, Boyd said.

Both the city and the parks and recreation department expected the bridge to be completed in time for the 2014 baseball and softball season, but construction setbacks, such as a current wait for additional bolts needed to assemble steel to arrive, have delayed the project. Northeast Ohio’s winter season is also not doing the city any favors.

“We were hoping first week of May,” Rhonda Boyd, city of Kent senior engineer said. “But I’m going to say it’s going to be probably toward mid-May, and at lot of that is going to depend on the weather. We really were wanting to try to do work throughout the winter, but I don’t think it’s going to be possible.

“We’ll have it before the leagues are over probably, but they may have to shift their schedules.”

With snowfall occurring on almost a daily basis, the project will be halted, but as winter turns to spring, accumulated snow melts and temperatures increase, the completed Harvey Redmond Bridge will soon open, and baseball and softball will again resume at the Kramer Ballfields.