FOLEY – The city of Foley plans to spend about $1.5 to improve Melvin Roberts Park on North Cedar Street.

The Foley City Council voted Monday, Oct. 2, to approve the project.

Jeff Lee, parks director, said the work will include major improvements at the site.

“This is one of our big capital projects planned for this year,” Lee told council members. “We are asking for $1.5 million to move forward on this project. The bigger pieces of this will be to replace the ball field lights with Musco LED lighting, the bathrooms, concession buildings and also the scoreboards. That’s what we planned early on for this project. But it’s going to take quite a bit of time so we’d like to go and get started on.”

The project will include improvements to the lighting at three baseball fields at the park. The current restrooms and concessions buildings will be demolished and replaced with prefabricated structures. 

Councilman Charles Ebert III said the time has come for improvements at the park.

“That park has served a long time and we haven’t done an upgrade like this in a long time,” Ebert said.

Melvin Roberts Park is often referred to as Cedar Street Park. The facility also includes four lighted tennis courts, basketball courts, a covered pavilion, playground equipment and a nature trail.