Safety concerns at Delta Dental Stadium led the Fisher Cats to cancel one of their games last week, and the team is asking for help from the city to prevent more cancellations.
The team said the stadium’s outfield must be fixed because of safety concerns.
“We’re coming up on the lifespan of the current outfield,” said Fisher Cats general manager Taylor Fisher. “There’s also, just over the last week or so, what we would characterize as a root zone issue.”
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That issue makes the outfield no longer safe to play on, Fisher said.
“The project is most definitely happening,” Fisher said. “We are putting in a lot of work right now to make sure that our next homestand next week, Tuesday through Sunday, very confident in our our grounds crew and STS, who we are partnering with, they’re helping to get us to the actual project date, fully confident that we’ll be able to get those six games.”
The project will cost about $400,000. The team said it has about $100,000 from its capital expenditure fund that it can use toward the repairs, and it’s asking the city of Manchester for $150,000 to help pay for the emergency repairs.
“It’s just how our lease is written with the city that any time our Capex fund is fully exhausted, we, when we have a large Capex project that needs to be done, we then just have to bring it to the city for a vote of the Board of Aldermen,” Fisher said.
“I think it’s important that we make sure that we as a city are being good partners, that we’re helping to make the upgrades that need to be done, on the field in this instance, and certainly wouldn’t want to see any games jeopardized as a result of that,” Mayor Jay Ruais said.
The team already had to cancel one of its home games because of the issue.
“I would certainly look forward to pressing the case on Tuesday that we need to make this investment into the field and to make sure they can continue playing games,” Ruais said.
The Board of Aldermen’s special committee will discuss the issue at its meeting early next week.
