by Joan Eliyesil ·
Friday, April 11, 2025
The town is one step closer to purchasing land for a new, all-purpose athletic field next to Harvard Park. An agreement to buy a 6-acre parcel on Old Mill Road for $440,000 from a private landowner is nearly ready for signature according to Town Administrator Dan Nason. The agreement will be contingent on the town’s approving Capital Planning and Investment Committee funds for the purchase at Town Meeting on May 3.
The land is part of a 27-acre parcel owned by Harvard residents Timothy and Sarah Arnold. The piece that they have agreed to sell to the town is adjacent to Harvard Park on the northwest side (see drawing), with a small amount of frontage on Old Mill Road. The owners have agreed to accept the assessed value of the parcel, $415,000; the additional $25,000 would cover legal and surveying fees.
A 2023 athletic field needs assessment from the design and consulting firm Gale Associates recommended Harvard add one full-size, multipurpose rectangular field; two youth-sized fields; and a ball field. The Park and Recreation Commission has since settled on a 60-foot diamond field and two full-size fields, which would allow one field to rest for at least a season to avoid deterioration from overuse.
The private land purchase came about after what the funding request described as “an exhaustive years-long search of potential sites” by the Park and Recreation Commission and the Open Space Commission. According to that document, only two private landowners expressed interest in selling land to the town for an athletic field during that search; the Arnolds and another resident whose parcel was deemed to be too close to wetlands and to the owner’s house.
Park and Rec first approached the Community Preservation Committee for funding, but using CPC funds to purchase land turned out to be a complicated process because of state requirements. Instead, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee agreed to use the money it was going to contribute to the $2.6 million McCurdy Track restoration project to fund the land purchase.
In exchange, the Community Preservation Committee voted to fund the entire track project, with an initial contribution of $600,000, and the remaining $2 million to be paid for with a long-term bond that would be paid down annually with CPC funds. Voters will have the opportunity to give both the CPC and CPIC recommendations a thumbs up or down, at Town Meeting on May 3.
There is still the possibility that a second full-size athletic field could be built in that same area off Old Mill Road. That’s because a proposed land swap involving school land and conservation land is still on the table.
Last November, the School Committee discussed the possibility of adding two rectangular fields and a ball field on the Small Land, but at that time both Open Space Committee Chair Jim Lee and Conservation Agent Liz Allard said they didn’t think the land was suitable for fields, and Lee said he wanted to move forward with a land swap proposal instead.
That proposal involves the schools’ giving the Conservation Commission jurisdiction over the Small Land. In exchange, the schools would get jurisdiction over the Stone Land, a 6-acre parcel on the northeastern side of Harvard Park that is currently under control of the Conservation Commission. Only 3.7 acres of that property are buildable, but that would be enough for one rectangular athletic field and 103 parking spaces, according to a report by the planning and design firm BSC Group in 2023.
The School Committee voted against the land swap last November, saying it wanted to maintain control of the large parcel behind the school, and it recently reaffirmed that vote at its March 24 meeting. Old Mill Road residents have also voiced their concern about the environmental impact of a field and parking lot on the Stone Land, which is located next to Old Mill Pond. Area residents have also complained about the town’s lack of transparency with its plans for new athletic fields on Old Mill Road.
Despite those potential obstacles, the Select Board has not given up on the land swap. Last winter, former Select Board member Rich Maiore told the Press, “The town has the final say when transferring control of town land from one committee to the other.”
In 2023, BSC estimated the cost to build a field and parking lot on the Stone Land to be $3.6 million. Using that estimate as a general guide, Recreation Director Anne McWaters told the Press her estimate to install a natural grass field and a small crushed stone parking lot on the Arnold parcel would be about $2.6 million, although prices will likely have escalated since 2023.
McWaters pointed out that the article voters will be asked to approve at the upcoming Town Meeting is only for the purchase of the land, not its development. “Since finding viable land for an athletic playing field has been an arduous and years-long task, we wanted to ensure that we did not lose this unique opportunity to secure the land for possible future use,” she said.