Demolition Begins at Miller Field

By Sue Ellen Woodcock

Crews began last week demolishing the old Miller Field and this week onlookers could see the field house come down and a section of the home-side bleachers.

James Letterie, co-chair of the Miller Field Committee along with Vin Crossman, said everything is on target for  Thanksgiving Day game against Revere on a new Miller Field. All the demolition is expected to be completed by May 16. The demolition of the track will be done in the middle of June.

“I’m still confident about the Thanksgiving Day game, but there will not be a field house by then,” Letterie said.

Letterie said turf will be put down on the field in late September or early October. The blue and gold colors have been selected for the end zones. One end zone will say, “Winthrop” and the other “Vikings.”

The $9.8 million project promises a multi-use field, a regulation size track, bleachers, press box and field house. Gilbane is the construction manager, Skanska is the project manager and Woodward & Curran work on the designs.

“The committees have been working hard. Everything is going well. We have the permits necessary to construct the field,” Letterie said. “We are waiting on one drainage permit for an area of Veterans Road.”

But Miller Field is not the only part of this project. The new tennis courts at Ingleside Park are being worked on. That $550,000 project is underway. The project should be done by the end of May depending on the weather. The low bidder for the project, which also includes a street hockey pad and a parking lot where the old courts are, is Quirk Construction, of Georgetown.

The committee has also been working with the golf course so there is as little impact as possible on the course.

The project also covers the flooding issues at Lewis Lake and the Winthrop Golf Course. This includes tide gates and grading working. An expensive part of the project is the building up of Miller Field with fill and grading it. The current Miller Field and track do not meet MIAA regulations and is prone to wetness.

The tennis courts across the street from the high school are in a holding pattern for now. The project has been removed from the purview of the Miller Field Committee and funds have been set aside for when work occurs.