By Nathan Deen
Published on October 10, 2007
The PJC Pensacola campus already hosts baseball, men’s basketball and women’s basketball teams. Soon, the softball team will be able to do the same. Coach Brenda Pena enthusiastically announced on Sept. 6, during the Meet the Athletes gathering, that PJC plans to build a new softball field on the Pensacola campus.
The team currently practices and plays at fields on the Milton campus, while they live in dormitories on the Pensacola campus.
“It’s going to help us in every aspect,” Pena said. “It’s going to help us with recruiting, it’s going to help us with time management…we’re not traveling every day. [Traveling] wears on you after a while. [The players] are very excited, everyone is. It’s something that everybody has wanted to do and it’s nice that we were finally able to find a suitable location and get it done.”
According to a plan approved by Dr. Isaac Brigham, vice president of planning and administration, that location will be between the baseball field, the gymnastics building and the track, facing 12th Avenue.
Although the cost of the new complex cannot yet be determined until the school is able to hire an architect, Brigham estimated that it will be in the range of $300,000 to $400,000.
“In the long run I think we’ll save money because [currently] the team has the inconvenience of traveling every day for practice and for games; there’s a cost associated with that,” he said. “And also there’s some safety [issues] with traveling on the bus to and from Milton everyday.”
The team can also expect to see some improvements and upgrades with the new field.
“There will definitely be some upgrades,” Brigham said. “Hopefully we can give them everything they need in terms of a dugout, lighting, fencing, vending and sanitation facilities.”
The construction of the new field will affect other areas of the Pensacola and Milton campuses. According to Brigham’s plan, the track and intramural field on the Pensacola campus will require reconfiguration. Also, Brigham says that it is a possibility that they will turn either the practice or the playing field at the Milton campus into a parking lot.
Brigham stated that the establishment of the new field is in the very early stages, just recently receiving board approval. The school is now looking for an architect to draw up a design. Brigham said that it will take at least a year, probably more, before the field’s construction is completed.
“We’re just in the process of hiring an architect,” Brigham said, “and once we approve the official design, it’ll probably take them 6 or 7 months to get that done. Once that’s completed then we’ll send out bids to hire a construction firm, which I’m sure will probably take another 6 to 8 months.”