The final phase of renovations to the Dartmouth Memorial Football Stadium will be delayed and may need to be reassessed entirely thanks to Covid-related price increases.

Dartmouth Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations James Kiely said the district recently put the remainder of the project out for bid and received three bids, with the lowest coming in at $6,390,000.

“I was hoping optimistically for somewhere between $3 and $4 million,” he said. “But being realistic, given the economic climate we’re in and the inflationary environment, I think that’s what this reflects.”

The stadium renovations have been in progress since 2019 after a combined $1,500,000 for phase 1 of the project was approved at the towns 2018 Fall and Spring Town Meetings. The first phase of the project was the installation of the synthetic turf field, including new lighting, drainage, and walkways.

Phase 2 would focus on renovating other structures at the stadium, like the bleachers and ticket and concession booth to add new bathrooms, a press box, and additional storage. The town appropriated $3,600,000 for those improvements at the 2019 Fall Town Meeting.

Now, Kiely said that the project will have to be put on hold and potentially reevaluated entirely in order to break it up into more manageable phases — though he said he would personally be opposed to that idea.

“We don’t have the money anyway,” he said. “At this point we need to regroup a little.”

Despite the majority of the renovations being paused, the district will go ahead with a smaller project at the stadium — building a new storage facility — that was put out for bid at the beginning of the pandemic.

“The timing of that was such that I think the economy didn’t quite understand where we were going to be now — and I know the contractor regrets bidding on this project,” said Kiely. “But they’re honoring it.”

The storage facility will be placed in the far left corner of the stadium when viewed from Slocum Road and work has already begun on the project.

School Committee Member Chris Oliver thanked Kiely for what he called a “dismal” report but said that he saw a silver lining in the news that construction of the storage facility would go ahead.

“That is a positive — that is progress,” he said.

Oliver said that given the significant change in circumstances, he would like to reconvene the turf field committee, which is made up of members from the school committee, select board, and town government.

“I think it’s worthwhile to reconvene so we can have some formal discussions,” he said.

Oliver added that, regardless of how the committee would decide to move forward, they would almost certainly need to go back to the town to request additional funding.

“Whether we wait a year or two years, we’re going to need more money,” he said. “That is the reality.”