Rockwell Park design nearly finished; public hearing expected in August or September

The Rockwell Park improvement project remains on schedule for permitting but is waiting for a town planning body to place it on a public hearing agenda, Director of Parks, Recreation and Leisure Services Dave Molesco told the committee.

"We're over 90% complete in terms of the design phase," Molesco said, adding that staff had submitted materials to building and land use and was awaiting TPZ scheduling. He said the public hearing will be scheduled "either for the August meeting or the September meeting" and that, if the hearing goes well, the town expects an RFP to be developed and released within about a month.

Molesco outlined the projects funding history: the town requested about $7
M to $7.5
M and received roughly $4
M. "We asked for 7,000,000 for this or 7.5. We got 4," he said, and noted the full-build estimate with artificial turf was "just under $15,000,000," which would leave an additional funding gap of roughly $11
M or more for later phases.

The director said some design choices remain to be decided, including whether to install artificial turf or natural grass. He described the turf option as programmatically attractive but acknowledged there are controversies and that the cost could push phase-two timing into years depending on funding availability.

The committee asked staff to continue coordinating the permitting and to push TPZ and building-and-land-use staff to get the project on the next available agenda so the town can move into bidding and contractor selection.