COEUR d’ALENE — Jack Bloxom remembers playing slowpitch softball at Memorial Field in the 1960s on a team that was good enough to draw a crowd to the grandstand on summer nights.

“We won two or three state championships,” said Bloxom, a former North Idaho College baseball coach.

Bloxom, 79, a Sandpoint baseball standout, graduated from the University of Idaho and, after receiving his master’s degree, joined NIC as a coach. He played softball in the summer on the Coeur d’Alene team called The Falls, which was sponsored by a Post Falls tavern.

The slowpitch games commenced after the Cardinals small ball season was over in May.

“It gave us something to do in the summer months,” said Bloxom, who coached the Cardinals for 30 years until the 1990s.

Although his Cardinals didn’t set a cleat in Memorial Field, the park and its grandstand has been a gathering place for slow and fast pitch aficionados for so long the boards are grooved from their footfalls.

Not many will argue that the grandstand, with its player silhouettes, its peeling green paint and the city’s name etched to its shiplap, isn’t a powerful paragon to a different time.

So, as Memorial Field is shored up as part of a city improvement project called Four Corners, the question remains:

“What’s going to happen to the grandstand?” City Council member Dan Gookin asked at a Thursday workshop where the city and ignite cda, its independent redevelopment agency, met to discuss future projects.

Gookin said he has heard from many concerned callers who fear the grandstand may be razed.

Tony Berns, ignite’s executive director, assuaged the fears.

“It’s not going to be torn down,” Berns said.

Instead, the city and ignite will pump some cash into the grandstand in an effort to not only preserve it, but to make it better.

“We’re going to keep the grandstand as is,” Berns said. “We’re going to beef it up from a structural standpoint.”

The city will take the lead on the project, settle on a design and seek bids to beef up the grandstand, adding amenities such as restrooms and a restaurant. The projected cost is $960,000.

“Our agency will be funding a portion of that,” Berns said. “We’d like to see that icon reinvigorated, bring it up to city standards and enhance it.”

Bloxom likes the idea.

The new level field will look extra nice from a perch in the refurbished bleachers, he said.