PNG Field needs millions of dollars of maintenance done.
The Altoona Blair County Development Corporation announced the proposal at the commissioners’ meeting Tuesday morning.
The ball park needs $2.2 mil in maintenance that must be taken care of within the next two to four years. Some of it needs to be done more immediately. A rough $100,000 of things like boiler replacement, scoreboard repairs and a new heater are among the first to fix.
County leaders want to do it without taxing residents. One option is increasing hotel tax to 5%, which would generate $900,00.
“We start looking at those costs and we can relate to that long term capital improvement,” said commissioner Terry Tommassetti. “We’ve had a situation here with the county that everybody’s aware of now where those types of expenses weren’t taken care of and they lump up. This is an effort to avoid that type of problem and preserve the stadium for entertainment for the residents of Blair County.”
Tommassetti said they will have more meetings to hash out all of the details. They expect a big discussion on this to happen at the commissioners’ meeting on July 19th.
