New London — The city is preparing to go out to bid on a long-anticipated project to restore Veterans Memorial Field back to a usable park for the city’s youth.

The field, located behind the former Edgerton School on Cedar Grove Avenue, has not been open to the general public since 2003, when elevated levels of arsenic and lead were found in the soil during routine testing associated with a school construction project. It was the remnants of a coal ash landfill.

After a state-funded $1.7 million cleanup, the field hosted portable classrooms while the city constructed new elementary schools. The portable classrooms were removed in 2013.

Kent + Frost Landscape Architecture of Mystic was enlisted to draw up the plans for the future park.

Those plans call for a baseball field with a backstop and dugouts and an all-purpose field that overlaps the outfield of the baseball field. A new stone-dust walking track around the property, chain link fence and composting restrooms and movable bleachers also are included in the plans. A small parking lot is anticipated, if funds allow.

The final costs will be determined by the bids but the city had intended to spend about $1 million, which includes $130,500 to Kent + Frost to develop the plans and construction bid documents. The plans are expected to go to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a formal review.

Construction is likely to start sometime next year.

The field has a long and storied history of hosting baseball games for numerous organizations and teams that have included New London High School and Little League.

New London recreation Director Tommie Major said he anticipated immediate use by one group or another, considering the limited number of playing fields in the city.

“Everyone will use it,” Major said Monday. “The need is there.”

Mayor Michael Passero said this week that one of the major holdups in getting work started at the field has been the environmental land-use restrictions put in place after the field was remediated and capped. He said he was looking forward to a return of a field that has been vacant since the removal of the portable classrooms.

Funding for the project will come from a mix of borrowed and owed money, according to city Finance Director Don Gray. He said the city has not used all of the money it was authorized to bond during previous school building projects. In addition, he said the city expects to receive state money once previous school building construction projects are officially audited and closed out — including Jennings, Winthrop and Nathan Hale schools.

A timeline for the project to go out to bid has not yet been determined.

g.smith@theday.com