A complete remodeling of Brewer High School’s athletic fields that have been too wet to use for years is nearly complete.
Heddericg Field, home to Brewer’s High School’s baseball and field hockey teams, has been turned into a 216,000-square-foot multi-sport complex with a large turf field, two baseball diamonds, five tennis courts and four pickleball courts, Brewer Athletic Director David Utterback.
Utterback said the project is “about 85 percent done,” as the concrete for the tennis and pickleball courts still needs to be poured, among other finishing steps.
Students will be able to practice on the turf, which was installed shortly before Thanksgiving, when spring sports begin in March. But, the complex likely won’t be completely finished until May, Utterback said.
“This will be one of the largest continuous sheets of turf north of Augusta where we can fit two side-by-side ‘rectangle sports’ — soccer, field hockey, football and lacrosse,” Utterback said. “There’s no turf like this for a public high school in Maine.”
Once complete, it will mark the end of a project that has been in the works in Brewer for years as several local teams have routinely had to play games at other fields in Greater Bangor rather than on their home turf.
The fields and courts in the complex will be home for Brewer High School soccer, field hockey, baseball, boys lacrosse and tennis. The field will also host the newly formed Brewer/Hampden Academy girls lacrosse team.
The Brewer High School football and softball teams will use the turf to practice, but will continue playing home games at Doyle Field and Coffin Field, respectively.
There will also be two baseball and softball fields in opposite corners of the complex. One of those fields will be designed for middle school students who have outgrown a 60-foot little league field but aren’t yet ready for a 90-foot full-sized baseball diamond.
“When you make the jump from a 60-foot diamond to a 90-foot one, it’s the most dramatic increase in sports and can be frustrating and discouraging for kids,” Utterback said.
The field, which sits behind Brewer High School at 79 Parkway South, is named after Charlie Heddericg, a longtime Brewer baseball, basketball and football coach who was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Heddericg, who also taught civics and history at Brewer High School from 1944 to 1971, died in 1990.
The field was functional from its construction between 1980 and 1990 until about 2015, when the drainage system under the field failed and it often became too wet to use.
“It’s ironic that Heddericg field turned into a swamp in the last few years, but now it won’t be able to rain hard enough for us to cancel a game,” Gregg Palmer, Brewer superintendent, said. “We’re living the dream. We did what we hoped we’d be able to do.”
Similar to professional sports fields, lines for different sports will be painted on the turf field as needed, then washed, Utterback said. This helps maintain the strength of the turf and reduces confusion that creating lines for multiple sports may cause.
The complex will have portable fences, allowing them to shift for whatever sport needs to be played. It will also have lights, a walking path around the perimeter of the facility and public bathrooms.
Palmer said the project likely won’t cost more than the $3.5 million bond the school’s board of trustees took out for it, but a final cost won’t be determined until the project wraps up in May.
Palmer said the completion of the complex will feel like “the last piece of the puzzle for the Brewer School Department” following the building of the Brewer Community School 2009 through 2011 and substantial renovations at Brewer High School during and following the pandemic.
Palmer said he believes the upgraded facility will make students proud to play for Brewer.
“If I’m a 15-year-old sophomore, this [complex] says something to me about how much my community cares about my experience and how important I am,” Palmer said. “It’s huge to say that to kids through our actions.”