CULLMAN, Ala. – After months of planting, painting, roofing and hail damage repair, a celebration was held at Heritage Park Thursday evening to commemorate the completion of renovations to the baseball fields and main office/concessions stand building. The work started last November after the last season ended, and Assistant Athletic Director Ashley Dye said that the finished product was like the park had “been given a facelift.”
The extent of the changes includes upgrading the backstops around the fields from chain fences to brick walls, adding new nets around all the fields, putting new roofs and paint on the pavilions and office/concessions building (all now sleek gray instead of green), removing the carpet from the offices and installing wood flooring, and new landscaping. One of the offices also has an art wall where pictures of the park colored by children are on display.
Cullman Parks, Recreation & Sports Tourism Executive Director Zac Wood said there are more projects coming, and Dye said one of the projects will include re-paving and painting the park’s parking lots.
Said Wood, “Renovations have gone well. It’s been a lot of work, lot of hard work and sweat. Lot of sweat equity in it as well, but it’s been very good and we’re very pleased. There’s a few things that we wanna do, but we’ll get to those.”
Dye also commented, “We’re excited to get everything going and just see people again! It’s been hard to not see everyone’s faces, especially in Parks & Rec. We miss them, and I’m sure they miss us as well.”
Both said the turnout for the celebration was better than expected, estimating about a hundred visitors coming and going during the two-hour period.
On a short tour around the park, Dye described the process they went through during the renovations.
“November of last year, we had the Parris Fence Company come in, and they tore down every fence post and fence that we had and started from scratch. While they were working on the outside fencing, we had people working on the backstops,” she stated. “As soon as the backstops were done and the concrete caps were poured, we put up the nets. The nets were fun to watch because as you can see, these large black poles are huge, and they came all in one piece instead of multiple sections. It’s just been awesome to watch the park’s transformation.”
The park will be hosting a USSSA softball tournament Saturday and Sunday, June 20-21, as well as the fireworks show on the 4th of July. Dye said the department has been looking at ways to make the show completely drive-in due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, and the size of the show has been doubled.
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