{"id":16785,"date":"2025-10-27T17:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16785\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T17:38:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:38:13","slug":"reading-community-schools-city-planning-for-upgrades-to-veterans-memorial-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16785\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Community Schools, city planning for upgrades to Veteran&#8217;s Memorial Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tVeteran&#8217;s Memorial Stadium in Reading could soon get a much-needed makeover.A partnership between the city and school district is beginning to take shape in what, essentially, is a land swap.Reading Community Schools will hand ownership of its former elementary school site to the city for a new fire station.The city, in turn, would cover the costs of stadium repairs.&#8221;Although the ownership would change, the use of the community will not,&#8221; said Mark Edwards, Assistant Superintendent with Reading Schools. &#8220;And we hope to increase that usage. We want the community to be able to come here, enjoy it.&#8221;Grass fields would turn to turf and the stadium would be expanded.Locker room upgrades would be on the table, too, and the outdated track would be replaced.It&#8217;s all part of a capital improvement plan that&#8217;s been in the works for years. But, all of this is dependent on the approval of a property tax bond issue.The school and city say it will give students and athletes a great place to practice.&#8221;We don&#8217;t have space. You know, we sometimes have to say, hey, you can&#8217;t have your game this day or your practice because there&#8217;s not enough room,&#8221; Reading Safety Service Director Patrick Ross said. &#8220;If we have a turf field, that will benefit all kids future generations.&#8221;As to how much the bond issue would cost taxpayers, there should be an answer by October. It would go on the ballot in November 2026.The goal is to have the stadium&#8217;s renovations done before the 2027 season, which would be the stadium&#8217;s 60th year in the city.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tCINCINNATI \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Veteran&#8217;s Memorial Stadium in Reading could soon get a much-needed makeover.<\/p>\n<p>A partnership between the city and school district is beginning to take shape in what, essentially, is a land swap.<\/p>\n<p>Reading Community Schools will hand ownership of its former elementary school site to the city for a new fire station.<\/p>\n<p>The city, in turn, would cover the costs of stadium repairs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although the ownership would change, the use of the community will not,&#8221; said Mark Edwards, Assistant Superintendent with Reading Schools. &#8220;And we hope to increase that usage. We want the community to be able to come here, enjoy it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Grass fields would turn to turf and the stadium would be expanded.<\/p>\n<p>Locker room upgrades would be on the table, too, and the outdated track would be replaced.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all part of a capital improvement plan that&#8217;s been in the works for years. But, all of this is dependent on the approval of a property tax bond issue.<\/p>\n<p>The school and city say it will give students and athletes a great place to practice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have space. You know, we sometimes have to say, hey, you can&#8217;t have your game this day or your practice because there&#8217;s not enough room,&#8221; Reading Safety Service Director Patrick Ross said. &#8220;If we have a turf field, that will benefit all kids future generations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As to how much the bond issue would cost taxpayers, there should be an answer by October. It would go on the ballot in November 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to have the stadium&#8217;s renovations done before the 2027 season, which would be the stadium&#8217;s 60th year in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran&#8217;s Memorial Stadium in Reading could soon get a much-needed makeover.A partnership between the city and school district&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12185,12183,12178,12180,4329,12179,12186,12181,12182,736,128,130,129,10089,12184,10406,8735,78],"class_list":{"0":"post-16785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-assistant-superintendent","9":"tag-athlete","10":"tag-city-planning","11":"tag-community-schools","12":"tag-day","13":"tag-memorial-stadium","14":"tag-november","15":"tag-ownership","16":"tag-property-tax-bond-issue","17":"tag-reading","18":"tag-reading-city","19":"tag-reading-city-headlines","20":"tag-reading-city-news","21":"tag-school-district","22":"tag-stadium-repair","23":"tag-upgrade","24":"tag-veteran","25":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}