Wright City Parks Director Stuart Bruning received approval from the board of aldermen to build a batting cage at Ruge Park at the April 24 board meeting. 

Bruning said the Wright City Parks Foundation had received a $5,000 Operation Round Up grant from the Cuivre River Electric Community Trust to cover costs for a batting cage at Ruge Park. He clarified that he had budgeted $10,000 for the batting cage and the rest of the funds would be covered by the parks foundation. 

“This would obviously serve all of our youth baseball and softball programs when their season is going on. It would be a great asset to the development for the kids and something great we could offer at Ruge Park,” said Bruning. “With this project, no funds from my budget would be used; it would be the funds that would be allocated through the Wright City Parks Foundation.”

Bruning also clarified that the $10,000 estimate in his bid packet was for the best batting cage they could build, and he expected the actual project to come in under budget. 

“There are options that would far exceed what our needs would be that would be much more cost effective,” said Bruning. 

Some of these options included forgoing a concrete pad on the bottom of the cage and instead installing chert rock and a turf pad for batters which Bruning estimated would cut concrete costs from roughly $2,300 to $500. 

Bruning said he did not have an actual bid for the project yet but based his cost estimate on the prices of available batting cage kits. 

Alderman Karey Owens wanted more information on the project but Alderman Ramiz Hakim clarified, with Bruning, that the batting cage would essentially be “poles, with netting.”

Hakim also asked about getting power to the cage which Bruning said would not be necessary since they did not plan to keep a pitching machine in the cage. He said the parks department has a power bank that could be used if someone wanted to use a pitching machine. 

Bruning said the cage would likely be located on the southwest side of the park near the walking trail to keep it out of the way of the baseball fields at the park. The cage’s length would be 70 feet and width would be 14 feet. 

“It’s a park with baseball fields, it’s not a baseball complex,” said Bruning. 

The parks department also recently brought in new infield dirt and regraded the east baseball field at the park with plans to do the same at the west field in the future. 

He clarified that was the location they chose to maintain the park’s aesthetics and keep them accessible and said he did not plan to remove any trees for the construction unless they were already dead or dying. 

Hakim pointed out that no city funds were being used for the project and did not take issue with Bruning building the structure as long as the funds came from the parks foundation, instead of the parks foundation reimbursing the city. 

“This is a donation the city is taking in. This is the equivalent in my mind of when the cemetery society comes, and they want to plant a tree. We usually don’t dig into how much the tree costs, it’s their money, they’re donating it to the city so I think that’s all good,” said Hakim. 

The project was approved unanimously. 

Bruning also thanked the parks foundation for their help with the grant process and for the funds to complete the project.

“I couldn’t have done it without Kathy Kehoe and the parks foundation. She was the one that put the application in, and the parks foundation was created for things such as this,” said Bruning.