HARTWICK - The Hartwick town planning board had its first look at the details of the Cooperstown Dreams Park's $3.7 million multi-year expansion plan Tuesday evening.

When complete, the expansion will boost the number of players and coaches visiting the park each week from 950 to 1,160, a 22 percent increase.

At the same time, the four new ball fields included in the plan are a 40 percent increase, according to Dreams Park CEO Louis Presutti and Fly Creek engineer B.J. O'Neill.

"It's a bigger increase in field capacity than participant capacity," O'Neill said.

And according to Presutti, the additional fields will allow them greater flexibility in scheduling games and help them avoid playing late night games.

"The current ten fields have the capacity to handle the proposed increase, but will not allow room for flexibility within the current operations plan for game scheduling during inclement weather," the application stated. "In the event of rain, without this flexibility, we would be forced to play late into the night as in years past..."

The expansion plan, Presutti said, is the result of a request from the planning board for a long range plan.

This spring, the planning board told Presutti that he could no longer expand the Dreams Park facility in a piecemeal fashion, but needed to present a complete picture of what they envision for the facility.

"We have been talking to them and encouraging them to come forward with a master plan for the next three to five years and they have agreed to do that," planning board co-chairman Dick Kelly said earlier.

The information presented Tuesday night included both proposed additions for the facility and items which Presutti said had been approved as part of earlier expansions, but not yet constructed.

Kelly told Presutti the board would have to review its minutes to verify those approvals.

According to the documents submitted, the park has set its sights on a number of support-type facilities in the first year of the expansion plan.

Among them is a new parking lot to be located on a 4.59 acre parcel behind the Great Labels barn on Route 28 the park purchased earlier this month from Howard Reiss. Otsego County Real Property tax office records indicate the purchase price for the parcel was $95,000. The new lot would create an additional 610 parking spaces bringing the total 1,110.

Also in the works for the first year are the widening of the upper bridge connecting the baseball village with the ball fields, fencing and screening, construction of the "Kodak" building, expansion of concession station number three, and construction of a train depot and security station.

The second year of the plan includes seven new 24' x 60' clubhouses, four new fields on the east side of the railroad tracks, a concession stand situated near the new fields, an office building, relocations of the maintenance building, additional fencing and screening, another security station, bath house, coaches' bath house/lounge, and two clubhouses.

In the third year of the expansion the park plans to add its American Youth Baseball Hall of Fame. The Dreams Park is still involved in a lawsuit with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum over the use of that name.

The third year also includes a memorial park, storage facility dining/assembly hall and more fencing and screening.

Because the planning board received the application documents Tuesday evening, members decided to wait to begin their review after they had a chance to read through the material.

The board also decided it would be a good idea to make a site visit to the Dreams Park to be able to better understand the expansion plans. The visit will take place Saturday, Nov. 25, at 1 p.m.