BUFFALO TWP — The construction of a new baseball/softball field for the Freeport School District will be pushed off for a decade.

Superintendent Ian Magness cited uncertainty in the state budget, the fact that the district is dealing with two other construction projects and the fact that there are other capital projects the district will be working on soon.

“It just wasn’t prudent at this time to move forward,” Magness said.

The total costs for the ballfield project were estimated to be from $1.6 million to $2.4 million, depending on the type of surface to be installed.

The district is building a new football field, finishing work on the new middle school and will be doing roof replacement projects on some of the school buildings. The total cost of these projects is just under $40 million, with more than $36 million coming from bonds.

Business manager Ryan Manzer said if the district were to borrow another $3 million to do the baseball field project, there would be about $2 million in interest payments that come with it.

“Doing an additional bond offering would be very expensive,” Manzer said.

He said the next best opportunity to do this project would be in about 10 years.

As the middle school and football field projects and roof replacement projects are finished, Manzer said the district can re-evaluate its financial position to see how the baseball field project would work.

“It could be sooner than (10 years),” Manzer said.

For this spring, baseball games will be played at Swartz Field in Freeport and softball games will be played at Freeport Community Park.

For spring 2017 and beyond, the district will be exploring other options.

Magness said the district has a few options it is looking at. He would not disclose those, saying that the district has not spoken with all of the necessary people related to the properties yet.

Because the site for the field has been picked and some preliminary work has been done there, Magness said that will cut down on the amount of time it will take to complete the baseball field project when the district decides to revisit it.

Magness said no vote from the school board is needed to halt the project.

School board President Dan Lucovich said the board is in agreement that it would not be responsible to do the project right now, so it makes sense to hold off until the other projects are done.