High School Field Renovations to Have Public Hearing

Before the Hanover Park Regional Board of Education approves the final plans for new artificial turf fields at Hanover Park and Whippany Park high schools, the board will hold another public meeting.

The planned renovations for the high school athletic complexes would require a referendum proposal, which will be structured after the Oct. 17 meeting.

The board approved Feitlowitz & Kosten Architects (FKA) as the architects for the improvements. A representative from FKA presented several renovation plans for the two schools at the Sept. 27 BOE meeting.

The most costly and major addition would be adding in a multi-sport stadium, which includes replacing the grass to artificial turf, resurfacing the track and adding in two more lanes, and replacing the home and visitor bleachers. These plans pertain to both Hanover Park and Whippany Park.

The multi-purpose field, which would cost about $4.5 million at Hanover Park and $4.7 million at Whippany, would allow students to play several sports including football, lacrosse, field hockey and soccer. The fields would also let the students play night games because lighting would be added.

Other plans were renovations to the field houses, practice fields, softball fields, baseball fields, and tennis courts.

At Hanover Park, fixing the tennis courts would cost a little over $800,000 because the school would have to add in a fifth court and remove pavement from the other courts and completely rebuild them.

At Whippany Park, the courts are in better condition and the project would only include milling and resurfacing. The project would cost $277,000.

In a letter to the communities of East Hanover, Hanover and Florham Park, Superintendent Carol Grossi invited citizens to attend the public meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17. at the Hanover Park High School theater.

A full copy of Grossi's letter may be found in the Photos & Documents portion of this article.