Recent News | Town of Pikeville

Dees Memorial Park Phase 1 Renovation Updates

5/23/2025

As a general reminder and overview of what Phase 1 will consist of, the bigger and formerly neglected baseball field will be completely renovated with new fencing, new grass, new infield, and graded for proper drainage. We will also construct a brand new restroom/concession stand that is scheduled to be located next to the picnic shelter. The current plan is to convert the old restroom into a storage facility for the ball field maintenance equipment.

As of May 23rd, we have secured CRA as our design firm to oversee the project. CRA has a long history of designing many of NC's major university's athletic and recreational facilities as well as county and city owned recreational facilities. We are lucky to have them onboard. At the current time, we are finallizing plans for the new restroom and ball field to make sure we are getting the most out of our budgeted grant money. Once we are all comfortable with the plans, we will put the construction projects out for bid. It is a long process but in order for it to be done right, we cannot rush or miss steps along the way. We will continue to update from time to time and post pictures of progress along the way.

As for other grant money projects, the museum renovations have wrapped up and the building looks amazing as compared to what it was 8 months ago. The museum should be reopening in the near future now that the renovations are complete. We also had a masterplan for the park completed which is available on the front page of the website for inspection. The other grant money was designated for sewer plant upgrades and improvements. Although the sewer plant has always operated, but it was in desperate need of some big maintenance projects in order for it to operate at the highest level. The biggest and most notable project, especially to those that live nearby, was replacing the blowers on top of the plant. The old ones were passed their expiration date and consequently very loud. The new ones with proper support built-in are very quiet. Also replaced our maintenance shop fence which was long overdue.