Herrick Park Renovation To Begin; New Fields, Tennis, Pickleball by Summer

The first phase of renovations at Herrick Park in East Hampton Village will begin this week and could be completed by Memorial Day, a consultant working for the East Hampton Village Foundation told village officials last week.

The first phase, which has been pared down from earlier plans to “Phase 1A” because of soaring costs of construction and materials, will create a new tennis court area with two tennis courts and two pickleball courts, a refurbished softball field with new dugouts, a new ADA accessible path around the park’s perimeter and a brick sidewalk at the border of the park and the Reutershan parking lot.

The project, which is going to cost just over $1 million, is being paid for entirely by the East Hampton Village Foundation, which has raised the funding privately through donations from residents and corporate sponsors.

“We’ve been back and forth with many different versions of this, but the cost of things have increased so much, we’re lucky we can get this done,” Mayor Jerry Larsen said. “This is why we created the foundation to begin with: to raise money for very important projects that we won’t have to burden taxpayers with.”

East Hampton Village Foundation Chairman Brad Billet presented the village with a check last week for $1,066,029 to cover the costs of the upgrades and renovations.

The new courts and paths will be constructed by LandTek, a contracting company that specializes in sports related facilities. The company is currently constructing the new little league fields on Stephen Hands Path, which it expects to complete soon and will then shift its focus to Herrick Park. Chris Hines of LandTek told the Village Board that the company hopes to be able to complete the project by Memorial Day or the first week of June.

“As long as the weather cooperates, our anticipation is to have this done by June 1 or Memorial Day weekend,” Hines said. “Right now, it’s all about the weather.”

The village has been planning a major refurbishment and expansion of Herrick Park since 2018. A second phase, to be tackled on a still uncertain schedule, would focus on improvements to the eastern segment of the park where it meets Newtown Lane to create a more welcoming interface between the park and the busy thoroughfare.

Two detectorists also asked the village on Friday for permission to sweep the park with metal detectors before major refurbishments to the park are completed that could destroy or obscure historic artifacts that may be lurking just beneath the surface of the park’s fields.

Bob Beck, one of the detectorists from Southampton, noted that the park was formerly farm fields and that many potentially important historic artifacts — including Revolutionary War artifacts, farm implements or various items harking to the history of the village — could still be near the surface. Mayor Jerry Larsen said that the park was used for military training during World War I.

The detectorists said that any artifacts discovered would be donated to the village.

“The history is in the ground,” Beck said.