BREC officials are exploring the possibility of developing a 400-meter public track in conjunction with a badly needed renovation of Olympia Stadium at the Perkins Road Community Park. As envisioned, the regulation-length track would ring the interior of the stadium, which would get a facelift.
Plans for the track and the stadium renovation are in the very preliminary stages, according to BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight, who says the idea was floated after discussions over the development of a proposed public track at Brooks Park hit a snag in recent months.
“We got to a standstill when we realized we didn’t have enough space (for the track at Brooks Park),” McKnight says. “So we said let’s stop, look around and see what else we can explore. Olympia is one idea that came up.”
Talk of developing a public track began last summer, when Varsity Sports owner and running enthusiast Jenni Peters proposed raising $500,000 in private funds to develop a public track on an underutilized portion of Brooks Park behind McKinley Middle Magnet School. BREC officials initially said they liked the idea but later said they didn’t have enough land to develop a 400-meter track, which is a standard length used in track meets.
BREC offered enough land for a 333-meter track, but running enthusiasts said there would be little point in raising money to build a track that is nonstandard length.
McKnight says a 200-meter track, which is a standard length and could be used as a practice track, could be built on the site, but the agency is not interested in paying for it. Peters says she believes both track projects should be explored and that they are not mutually exclusive.
“It’s worth pursuing them both at the same time,” she says.
Peters says she believes she could raise enough money for a 200-meter track at Brooks Park from private donors. As for the larger track at Olympia, McKnight says it would be a multimillion-dollar project and that a funding source would have to be identified.
“It would be wonderful for the community,” she says. “We just have to find the resources to make it happen.”
—Stephanie Riegel
