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Manchester Parks and Recreation Director A.J. Fox spoke about updates to the city’s ongoing ballfields lighting project during the regular Parks and Recreation Commission meeting Thursday, April 11.

Fox said materials will soon be ordered so that lighting can begin to be installed at select ballfields.

“Once he places the order for the materials it will take 10 weeks for that material to come in, so we are thinking that will probably be after the first of July before they get started, which will work out with the fall season,” Fox said. “Now the only downside of that is field eight and tee-ball won’t have lights for this season, just like part of last season tee-ball didn’t have it and all of last season field eight didn’t have it.”

Fox said fields that currently have lighting are being renovated.

“We went ahead and spent about $6,000 and got all the lights relamped,” he said.

Fox said a previously proposed idea to light the tee-ball field with a rental light did not pan out. After being put up, a light meter showed the rental light did not omit enough light for players.

At 28 ft., the rental light was significantly shorter than the 60 ft. light poles utilized at the parks.

Fox said the Recreation Department has put out an intent to apply for another grant to install lighting at an additional three city-owned ballfields.

In other news, work on the Recreation Center’s therapy pool heater has been completed following multiple instances of issues with the old unit.

The new units essentially serve as tankless hot water heaters and with electric work, the total cost for installation came to just over $32,000.

The new unit actually features two components that work in tandem to get the pool up to temperature, in the event one fails, the remaining heater can maintain the heat of the pool.