Lebanon
Dartmouth Coach is hoping to purchase 7.6 acres from the Lebanon Elks Club for an undisclosed amount, according to records filed with the city.
The company then would pave between 250 and 300 parking spaces across the street from its new terminal.
The project is the result of early success at the terminal, which opened in December, Peter Stanley, project manager for the Dartmouth Transportation Company, said during a Planning Board conceptual review on Monday.
“Almost immediately what we thought was going to be several years of breathing room for our facility have turned into being near capacity much of the time,” Stanley said in an audio recording of the meeting. “It ended up being more successful than we imagined it would be by a significant margin.”
With parking consistently a problem at Dartmouth Coach, he said, the company is proposing to expand on Elks property.
The construction would result in the demolition of Elks Field, which could leave several softball and baseball programs searching for a new home.
“It’s definitely going to create a much more difficult hardship for us,” Ray Petterson, head coach of the Lebanon High School softball team, said during an interview on Tuesday.
There are basically four diamonds in Lebanon shared between city recreation programs, school teams and adult leagues, Petterson said.
If one of those four is taken out of the rotation, he’s worried that competition could get heated for the remaining fields.
The Lebanon High School team shares Elks Field with a summer adult league and off-season recreation programs.
Petterson said the field isn’t very nice in comparison to others he’s seen throughout New Hampshire.
“There’s not electricity. There was at one time but it wasn’t kept up,” he said. “There’s no scoreboard. Parking was definitely not adequate for people who would come to see a game.”
Still, Petterson said, the diamond has several good qualities, mainly its close proximity to the high school and qualification for New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association play.
Without Elks Field, there would be two diamonds left in Lebanon that could be upgraded to serve the high school team, he said. The John Bryar Field near the former Seminary Hill School and the Lebanon Middle School’s fields are both best suited to that transition, Petterson said.
Besides ongoing recreation programs, Elks Field also was eyed for Lebanon’s expansion of young professional leagues, said Paul Coats, the city’s director of Parks and Recreation.
“It is a big loss to us but we’re going to survive, and in the short term, it will be difficult but we’re going to manage,” he said.
Dartmouth Coach expects teams to vacate the fields by next spring, meaning ongoing programs can continue through this summer and fall, Coats said. The city might be able to use other fields to make up for the shortfall, he predicted, but it’s possible fewer people will be able to take part.
“Worst case scenario is we have to say adult softball can be limited to 16 or 18 teams rather than 25 teams,” he said.
Until that happens, other recreation programs are closely watching developments.
“There’s a shortage of fields in the area. Baseball’s just a small part of that,” said Jason Gunn, president of Lebanon Youth Baseball.
Gunn said he’s worried that if city and high school teams reshuffle their schedule, others will be pushed off playing fields. Some used by the youth baseball league are too small for adult play, he said, but most programs share a select group of diamonds.
The planned sale also comes as the Lebanon Elks are trying to recover from financial difficulties some suspect was the result of misuse of club funds.
The Elks reported possible financial irregularities to Lebanon police in February, and an investigation is ongoing alongside the FBI, according to police Chief Richard Mello.
Since then, the club has met with the IRS to begin paying back $144,000 in unpaid taxes, according to the group’s June newsletter. Members also have reached out to Lebanon’s tax collector to discuss $291,000 owed to the city.
“We have acquired way too much debt just to pay over time,” the club’s exalted ruler Scott Merrihew wrote in the newsletter. “It is going to require our lodge to sell or to sell a portion of our land.”
Club trustee Gary Ward said on Tuesday the sale of Elks Field stemmed from underlying financial problems.
“(Dartmouth Coach) knew that when we were in trouble they could be of assistance to us. It’s a mutually beneficial situation,” Ward said. “Perhaps if the lodge had been on stronger financial footing, we wouldn’t have had to make that decision (to sell).”
But the roughly 560-member organization has “new people in charge and we have gotten things turned around,” he said. “Things look pretty promising in the Elks for the future.”
Ward said there’s also been discussion to rebuild the field somewhere else on the club’s remaining 52 acres. Talks to do so are preliminary, he said, and would need the approval of the full membership.
However, Dartmouth Coach’s proposal is not necessarily a sure thing. It wants to use Elks Field for parking because of its location in Lebanon’s industrial zoning districts, and company officials hoped it could be built without having to obtain a zoning variance.
But planning officials at Monday’s meeting said it’s possible the project, which could amount to accessory off-site parking, might have to go before the Zoning Board. Dartmouth Coach officials ultimately said they would like more clarification before moving forward.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.