Video: Thorold won’t be selling park to Niagara District School Board

That’s strike one for Thorold Secondary School and the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN).

The high school and DSBN had high hopes of purchasing McMillan Park on Carleton Street North to deal with a number of sports issues facing Thorold Secondary School.

At the moment, the school’s sport fields are substandard – they have to travel to other fields for some sports – and they were hoping to build a synthetic turf field at McMillan Park.

However, Thorold City Council shot down their a final proposal and draft Agreement of Purchase and Sale at a Special City Council Meeting yesterday (August 30).

While the specifics, such as purchase price, were never released, the city kept the door open to a deal down the road by saying they look “forward to continued discussion of this proposal in the future.”

The park currently hosts several amenities, including a Splash Pad Playground Equipment, an open field area, a small parking area and a combined football/baseball field.

What Thorold Secondary School’s proposal (through the DSBN) would have seen was the installation of a full-size synthetic turf football field with state of the art LED lighting and new bleachers. The ball diamond and existing amenities (dugouts, clubhouse and backstop) would remain in their current location.

However, the project requires the existing splash pad, playground equipment and fencing to be removed.

Thorold Secondary School students even pitched the idea with a video, shown below.