BRISTOL — The Bristol Recreation Club is wrapping up a much-needed renovation project to its grandstand and kitchen facility just in time for the Little League baseball season.
“We thought it was going to be a minor repair project to start with,” said Eric Carter, co-director of the Rec Club. “But when we tore off the siding, we realized that five big posts that hold up the building — two of them had about two feet rotting.”
About 30 years of garbage, stuffed between cracks in the grandstand, had also accumulated.
The Rec Club decided to invest in properly fixing up the structure off Airport Road. Six months and $25,000 later, the grandstand is nearing completion.
“It got brand-new siding, brand-new seating, everything got leveled and shimmed,” Carter said. “We also renovated the kitchen, which has new stainless steel equipment so that we can be certified and licensed by the Department of Health for the entire season.”
The floors of the grandstand are tighter, so no more garbage will fall or be discarded underneath it.
Carter said that the Rec Club had noticed that demand for the space had gone up recently and hoped that the trend would continue in the coming season.
“We’ve made improvements so that even more groups will want to use the space,” Carter said.
The club also had weddings in mind when it renovated the kitchen. The Rec Field had been a popular place for Bristol locals to tie the knot decades ago, and Carter said that the improved kitchen would make it possible for weddings and other catered receptions to take place in the facility.
After investing $25,000, the Rec Club decided to outfit the area with a state-of-the-art video surveillance system. The grandstand’s location on the Rec Field has occasionally made it a place where illicit activity like drug use and vandalism occurred.
“Even if we can’t prevent it from happening, we’ll know who did it,” Carter said.