SKOWHEGAN — The monthslong debate over the playing surface at Skowhegan’s new baseball field has come to an end.

The field will not be artificial turf. It will be sod.

The decision was finalized Tuesday night as the Board of Selectmen awarded a bid for the baseball field and other infrastructure at a long-planned athletic complex next to the Skowhegan Community Center at 39 Poulin Drive.

By a vote of 3-1, selectmen awarded the bid to Ranger Construction Corp. of Fairfield for $2.3 million, while also approving a 10% contingency for additional unforeseen costs.

The bid is for the phase of construction that includes a regulation size baseball field, which also fits a regulation soccer field, and an access road, a parking lot, sewer and water lines for the entire project, demolition of the dugouts at existing Little League fields and other infrastructure.

It puts Skowhegan on track to have a baseball field ready by the spring of 2026.

Some residents and selectmen became frustrated with the project over the past year, in part because the new facility is supposed to replace the previous homes of Skowhegan’s baseball and tennis teams at Memorial Field on Heselton Street. Those teams played this spring without home facilities in town because Memorial Field was sold to Maine School Administrative District 54 for construction of its new elementary school.

Four contractors ultimately bid on this phase of the project, after the town vetted potential contractors through a previous process. The contractors submitted various alternatives with their bids, including the costs for an artificial turf field, a natural grass field and a sod field.

Once the bids were received, those from R.J. Grondin & Sons of Gorham and R.A.D. Sports of Rockland, Massachusetts, were ruled out because their prices were significantly more than the other two, according to Steven Govoni of Wentworth Partners & Associates Inc., the company hired by the town to oversee the athletic complex project as clerk of works.

Govoni is also a Skowhegan selectman. He removed himself from the board’s table during discussion of the bids Tuesday and abstained from the vote.

That left Ranger and Sargent Corp. of Orono in serious contention, Govoni said.

Ahead of Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, the town’s Recreation Advisory Committee discussed the bids Monday night. In a 6-2 vote, the committee recommended Ranger’s $2,300,417.50 bid, which included a sod field.

The committee’s conversation focused largely on the playing surface and what the town could afford with funds now available.

Ranger’s bids, including the necessary water infrastructure, were $2.2 million for grass, $2.3 million for sod and $3.06 million for artificial turf.

Sargent’s were $2.39 million for grass, $2.49 million for sod and $3.29 million for artificial turf.

Each option would have the spring of 2026 for the projected completion of the baseball field, Govoni said. At this point, the town could afford all options, officials said.

For this phase of the project, the town has about $1.9 million available in capital reserves, and $3 million in federal dollars from congressionally directed spending, according to the committee’s discussion. The capital reserve funds are from the sale of Memorial Field to MSAD 54, and a $200,000 donation from New Balance. Some has already been spent.

Ranger’s prices overall were less than Sargent’s, which Govoni and his colleague, George Bell, cited in their recommendation as clerk of works. The company’s price for removing rock, however, were exponentially greater than Sargent’s, and Govoni said he intends to negotiate those before the town signs a contract.

Govoni said he, as clerk of works, also recommended against artificial turf because of future maintenance costs. His projections were for turf replacement kits to be purchased every five years, at $30,000, with a complete surface replacement after 10 to 12 years, at more than $1 million.

Maintenance of a sod or grass field would increase each year, but would likely reach a maximum of about $20,000 per year, Govoni said at the recreation committee meeting.

A majority of the Recreation Advisory Committee and Board of Selectmen agreed with that recommendation, citing concerns about maintaining turf well into the future.

“That’s the number that I’m hung up on,” Selectman Vice Chairman Charles Robbins said.

Selectwoman Amber Lambke agreed, saying, “It is these costs that concern me, too.”

Even so, some remained set on an artificial turf field, which at one point was the planned surface. Those in favor of the turf, including some selectmen, recreation committee members and town residents, have said it would serve more athletes and attract people from other communities to Skowhegan.

“In my opinion, I think by going sod, grass, we’re doing a disservice to the community,” said Board of Selectmen Chairman Paul York, who voted against awarding Ranger’s bid Tuesday night.

But with a decision now made on the baseball field and how much it will cost, town officials can look at how to proceed with other parts of the overall project, which could include another field made of artificial turf.

Overall plans for the Skowhegan Community Center expansion project, for which planning began in 2006, include two sports fields, tennis and pickleball courts, a concession stand, new Little League field dugouts, a maintenance garage and other infrastructure.

“This gives us the opportunity to move forward with other parts of this same project,” Govoni said.

Bids received this spring for the maintenance garage, concession stand and Little League field dugouts at the community center complex were greater than what selectmen had expected. The three bids for the concession stand and dugouts ranged from about $622,000 to $1.03 million, according to records.

Town officials are considering options for those aspects of the project, and no bids have been awarded.

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