Tiger Stadium renovation to be completed in July

May 16—SHARON — The renovation of Tiger Stadium is set to begin soon, with completion expected in July. The project will include some concrete work on the stands and completely demolishing the field. The track will be lost, and the field will be completely re-sodded.

Sharon City School District will spend about $1.3 million on the project. The last time there was concrete restoration was about nine years ago.

Experts said the field slopes 5 feet from corner to corner. The track will be ripped out and replaced with an 8-foot walking path around the grass field.

The contract was awarded on Monday to J.C. Lee Construction & Supply Co. Inc., Petrolia, Pa., the lowest of five bids.

J.C. Lee Construction and Supply agreed to have the project finished by July 5.

School officials have called the existing track at the high school stadium substandard and unsafe, and it is not regulation size for competition.

Dave Harris of DPH Architecture spoke at a school board meeting to promote building a track on the former Hadley Elementary School grounds, which is a short distance away at the corner of Highland Road and Boyd Drive.

No final decision has been made on that yet.

Construction on the stadium will begin as soon as the district receives permits from the Mercer County Conservation District.

"Because we are disturbing over two acres of land, we had to have an engineer go through all that," said Justi Glaros, superintendent. "Once we get that permit, we're good to go."

The stadium, built in 1934 as a Depression-era Works Progress Administration project, includes the two-story, concrete and brick grandstand along the west side that seats 5,400. Additional bleachers on the other side of the field were added later. The original plan in the 1930s had called for concrete seating for 10,000 encircling the field.

The stadium sits behind the high school between Forker Boulevard and North Myers Avenue. It and much of the neighborhood lies over poorly-mapped coal mines from the 19th century that occasionally have caused parts of the stadium to shift over the years.

Follow Melissa Klaric on twitter @HeraldKlaric or email her at mklaric@sharonherald.com