If all goes as planned, there will be new press box facilities in place at Simms Park in Gulf Shores prior to the opening of youth league baseball.

During Monday’s city council meeting, Grant Brown, Director of Parks and Recreation, explained to council members that, due to the current workload of the city’s maintenance department, it would not be possible to have the new press boxes rebuilt in-house and have them completed by the opening of the season on April 2.

“Due to renovations and other issues that have been tying up our public works people for the last few months, we have come to a time constraint issue,” Brown said.” Now, instead of a $5,400 expense to do it in-house, we have sent out bids and it will be a $14,000 expense to have a contractor come in and pour the concrete, build the press boxes, and be able to hit our opening day of April 2.”

According to Brown, the expense will not change the budget, but will shift the dollar amounts for this particular item. The overage still fits within the total amount of infrastructure improvement money approved for the park, which is currently $30,300.

Brown said nothing had been done and that the project needed to be started immediately.

Council voted unanimously to approved the project.