With significant portions of the Strong Center project still unfinished, options for funding the envisioned sports center at the Surf Club are slowly dwindling, leaving project directors and local officials with difficult decisions to make.

Currently project board members are awaiting news of a possible $500,000 Small Town Economic Assistance (STEAP) grant to complete the project, but Strong Center Board of Directors Chair Larry Ciotti said they have been waiting for a while.

“The grant would finish both field houses,” he said. “We keep hearing ‘any month now,’ but we have been hearing that for three years.”

The project, which has been in the works for several years, consists of two phases. Phase I of the project included the replacement of the former grass football field with an artificial turf field and installation of the scoreboard, flagpoles, lighting, and bleachers with seating for 2,000. Phase II of the project includes a planned plaza and two field houses.

Should the project not receive the grant, the board of directors will have to turn to other revenue streams to finish the project.

“Plan B is that we would have to ask the town for a special appropriation because we are pretty tapped out in terms of approaching people and fundraising,” Ciotti said. “We have raised together with the town over $2.4 million at this point and it has taken seven years to do so.”

Ciotti said the public has been very generous, but that they can’t keep turning back to the same benefactors.

“Now any time our Board of Directors make phone calls, people don’t answer them because we are constantly hounding them for money,” he said.

While there’s not enough money to complete the field houses, the project still has enough money to complete the center plaza, which should cost approximately $150,000.

“We hope to have construction completed by Aug. 1,” he said. “We need to construct the sponsor columns and on the sponsor columns will be individual plaques for people that purchased naming rights. Then the next thing will be to put in the septic system and then to finish off the surface of the plaza with over 300 stones that were sold.”

People are encouraged to purchase plaza stones soon because their cost is likely to rise, according to Ciotti.

“The stones are $500 apiece and after April 1 they will be $800 because of production costs,” he said. “So we needed to alert everyone.”

Despite the struggle to secure total funding, Ciotti said the plaza will be completed and will be a great addition to the area.

“The plaza will be an extraordinary area for people to mill around, to see the beginnings of Strong Field and the renovation so it will be a wonderful place,” he said. “It will be like a little destination. That plaza is big enough to hold dances, to hold functions, to meet for road races, you can use it for a number of things and it’s right on the water.”

Ciotti said that due to the generosity and desire of a benefactor, the plaza will also include a memorial garden that pays tribute to people who have perished from drunken drivers.

To learn more about the project or to donate, visit www.strongcentersurfclub.org/contact.html.