New London — The City Council on Monday night got a glimpse at what two of the city’s parks could look like and how they could be used if the city approved millions of dollars of restoration work.

Brian Kent, of Mystic-based Kent + Frost Landscape Architecture, presented the council with master plans for Riverside Park and Veterans Field, city parks with rich histories that have been targeted for long-discussed improvements.

The work at Veterans Field on Cedar Grove Avenue is intended to restore the field to the condition it was in before the city put temporary modular classrooms there to use while two elementary schools were built.

“The determination was that the field should be restored as close to its original configuration as possible in order to preserve that historical legacy and that familiarity people have with that field,” Kent said.

Veterans Field — formerly known as Morgan Park — has historic ties to baseball. In 1945, Yogi Berra — who would go on to play for the New York Yankees and be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame — played at the field while he served in the Navy.

To preserve that history, Kent said, the plan for Veterans Field calls for an updated baseball diamond with home and away dugouts, bleachers and a press box. There would also be a large field suitable for use as a soccer or lacrosse field, he said.

The plan for the field — which could cost as much as $3.1 million — would also include a new entrance, parking lot, concession stand and bathhouse, and would be surrounded by a walking path.

The plan to improve Riverside Park would involve three phases, the first of which would focus on the area near Winthrop Elementary Magnet School. It would include clearing some trees to afford park visitors an unobstructed view of the Thames River and the opposite shore.

The park’s master plan is based in part on a proposal developed in 2011 by the Community Research and Design Collaborative at the University of Connecticut. To better link the school, the park and the Thames River, the plan would involve building a new set of stairs from the school to the park, a series of handicap-accessible ramps from the top of the park to the riverbank, and eventually a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks on the riverbank and a pier to stretch out into the Thames River, restoring river access that once existed there.

The main road in to the park, on Adelaide Street, would become a one-way entrance for cars, creating a bicycle and pedestrian lane.

“It would allow us to open half of that roadway to bicycles and pedestrians,” Kent said. “That is a really important piece because it encourages the neighborhood, it encourages the city to get there on foot, to bike there and to feel safe about doing it.”

The plan also calls for additional picnic and activity spaces within the park.

Last year, the council approved an appropriation of $925,000, originally part of a 2011 bond ordinance, to fund improvements to the park. Kent said Monday the first phase of the project could be completed for about $824,000. The second and third phases are currently estimated to cost $1.4 million and $2.9 million respectively.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung