Rocky Top ballfield renovation
City gets $566K grant to boost accessibility
Rocky Top officials last week were presented a $566,000 check from the state Office of Outdoor Recreation for a grant awarded to the city for improvements to the city ballpark, which include new bleachers, concessions stand, press box and more. Receiving the check here are, second from left, City Manager Mike Ellis, Mayor Kerry Templin and the mayor’s wife, Carolyn Templin. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
City Manager Mike Ellis said the seating area and other facilities, including restrooms, at the George Templin Memorial Field need upgrades that would make them compliant with standards mandated by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We haven’t done anything with the bleachers to make them ADA-compliant, and in fact, not much has been done at the ballfield to meet ADA standards,” then-city Councilman Zack Green said in August, after the grant was announced.
Green was chairman of the city’s Recreation Commission, as well. He left the council this month after choosing not to run again in the November election.
The act requires most public facilities, as well as private facilities open to the public, to be made accessible to people with disabilities.
“The bleachers must be torn down and replaced,” Green said earlier.
“This field gets a lot of use,” he said. “We have Little League football there, and the [Lake City] Middle School uses it for baseball. There are also some softball leagues using the field.”
Green was able to get the City Council’s approval at the Feb. 15 meeting to move forward with the grant application of up to $750,000 from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to help pay for the improvements.
The $566,000 award was announced in August, and comes from TDEC’s Local Parks and Recreation Fund.
Rocky Top was among four area cities to receive grants from the fund, for a total of $1.27 million.
Other recipients were Norris ($375,000), Harriman ($300,000), and Oliver Springs ($29,000).
The money was included in the state’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget approved by the General Assembly.
The catch, though, is that these grants require a dollar-for-dollar match from the city.
Mayor Kerry Templin said earlier that the city most likely would have to finance its part of the upgrades.
“It would be awesome to update the restrooms, too,” the mayor said. “The field itself is in awesome shape, and we already have the new LED lights.”
The ballfield already has a new scoreboard, which cost about $12,000, and the City Council approved a $5,000 city contribution to that expense.
The rest came from other sources, including the Anderson County Board of Education and Anderson County Commission, Green said.
Ellis said the grant will help pay for new aluminum bleachers, the press box, ADA-compliant restrooms, and a second concession stand.
“We’re still trying to decide the number of seats we will need,” Green said earlier.
“As for the new concession stand, Little League football built the existing concession stand at the end zone, and they operate it. But we’re wanting to have our own concession stand.”
Besides the ballpark grant, the council also has applied for a Blue Cross/Blue Shield grant to pay for trees that would be planted to create a “green space” park and canopy around the city’s splash pad, to provide shade.
Included would be an irrigation system.
That grant would require no city matching funds, Ellis said.
