(This story has been updated due to an inaccuracy.)
Monroe Public Schools is finalizing a deal to sell Navarre Field at 308 Jones Ave to Fountain Enterprises, parent company of Dynamic Fire Protection, Inc. in Newport, on Thursday, Feb. 5, at 10 a.m. The district’s board finalized the approval on Jan. 13 to sell 7.38 acres for $313,534.
“We’re probably going to clean up some things, paint, you know, make it look nice,” said Fountain Enterprises owner Todd Fountain.
Monroe Public Schools has owned the field since at least 1927, according to Superintendent Andrew Shaw. However, the district has been looking to sell the property for some time, even selling part of the property to Habitat For Humanity in the spring of 2025, as the field has been largely unused recently except for Monroe Middle School baseball practice, according to Shaw.
“We weren’t advertising, this person just came forward, a lot like Habitat did, with an offer, and so we agreed to what the offer was,” he said.
Jared Janssen, atheletic director of St. Mary’s Catholic Central High School, said that their football team has used the field “as long as anyone can remember.” He also said that they don’t anticipate being able to use it in the future.
“We are exploring options what to do, I guess would be the best way to put it,” he said.
Fountain said that the plan is to keep the field open to public use for two years, but if it continues to go largely unused he plans to develop housing or apartments on the property.
“I just think everything is filled up in Monroe,” he said. “And I think it would go like hotcakes.”
— Contact reporter Connor Veenstra at CVeenstra@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: What will become of Monroe Public Schools’ Navarre Field after sale?
Reporting by Connor Veenstra, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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