Could Portsmouth build athletic fields at former Jones School site at Pease?

PORTSMOUTH — City officials are planning to investigate the viability of locating a multi-sport athletic field at the former Jones School site at the Pease International Tradeport.

City Manager Karen Conard explained in a memo to the City Council the Pease Development Authority is granting Portsmouth a right of entry to the site to allow officials “to perform preliminary investigation into whether the site is suitable" for fields.

“If the answer is no, then the efforts at this site would cease,” Conard said.

But if city officials decide the site is “potentially suitable, subsequent efforts involving the city and PDA would include discussions on precisely what the city proposes for the site and ensuring that it complies with PDA zoning regulations,” Conard said.

Conard, who serves on the PDA’s Board of Directors, stated “recreational uses, including playing fields, are permitted” at the site, “so long as the use is maintained on a nonprofit basis for the benefit of Pease tenants and/or the city of Portsmouth and the towns of Newington and Greenland.

“The PDA would certainly be most interested in a use that would have the potential to serve a wide array of recreational users, which a multi-use field appears to satisfy,” Conard said in her memo to the City Council.

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But she acknowledged “a potentially more complex issue would concern the nature of an actual lease agreement (term, consideration, construction timetable, etc.).”

“Among the issues for consideration would be the approval of the language in the lease by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration),” she said, a reference to the airport at Pease.

“The PDA Board would ultimately need to authorize any proposed development and lease agreement. As such, the right of entry is the first step in this process,” she added.

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The Jones school was formerly home to the Portsmouth Alternative Secondary School, according to a story published in 2010 by the Portsmouth Herald.

Mayor Deaglan McEachern has not visited the former Jones School site since he was a child, he said Monday.

“I think that any site that’s not really being utilized would be something worth considering,” McEachern said when asked about the property.

Pointing to the “success our sports teams have been having,” McEachern said it makes sense to investigate the location off Corporate Drive to see if it could be used for an athletic field or fields.

“All of these things would have to fit together and it’s something that the PDA would have to approve, but we need more sports fields as much as we need more indoor space,” he said, referencing the city’s efforts to help create an indoor multi-sport indoor facility somewhere in the Seacoast.

He thinks the Jones School site would likely make the most sense to use for an athletic field, but said we’re still “in the early innings.”

“We need to make sure we are activating those places that are not activated,” he said about the Jones School site at Pease. “Land is at a premium here on the Seacoast."

He said the potential exists to use the space for recreation because housing can’t be developed at the former Pease Air Force base.

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McEachern believes that the PDA has had difficulty developing the Jones School site, at 255 Corporate Drive, “for commercial use.”

He acknowledged if it works out, the site could add to Portsmouth’s recreation facilities.

The City Council is expected to revisit the idea of building below market rate housing at the former Sherburne School either late this year or next year.

If that site is developed, it could mark the end of an existing softball field there.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH considers athletic fields at former Pease school site