Liberty Village is a bustle of construction activity, with new buildings that seem to spring up daily. But for Ron Tite, one spot sticks out like a sore thumb.

The sore spot in his neighbourhood is Allan A. Lamport Stadium, a concrete structure built in 1974 that some neighbours liken to the women's prison that used to occupy the site on King St. W., east of Dufferin St.

"The general consensus [among neighbours] is that the stadium portion that surrounds the field does not get used," Tite says. "So here we have this big, old, archaic structure that is less than pleasing to the eye and takes up a lot of valuable space."

Lamport Stadium might look like the sports complex that time — and Toronto — forgot. But according to city councillor Gord Perks, there is indeed a vision for the area, one reminiscent of the fable about the tortoise and the hare, and being slow and steady to win the race.

Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) says Lamport's imposing walls are actually hiding how the city-owned facility is getting better every year.

"We've turned a derelict old empty building into something that's used 365 days a year for a variety of purposes,” he says. “And we've done it at very little expense and quite quickly."

Perks says the stadium has been renovated, bit by bit, since 2007, when the neighbours and users of the stadium were confronted with an all-or-nothing scenario: “Put a condo there and maybe you can get a sports complex [as part of the deal]” is how he recalls it.

"People said if you turn that down, the stadium will wither and die,” Perks says. They turned it down anyway.

"People in the neighbourhood and city staff and I all felt that there was a way to revitalize [the stadium] and we've been unbelievably successful."

The changes started with the installation of new artificial turf in 2008, he says.

"When I took office [in 2006], the playing field was completely unusable; it was a safety hazard. The cover was worn down, there were rips in it and bare concrete in some spots."

Now, Perks says, on any given day you'll find several groups of people using the stadium for Frisbee, field hockey or pickup soccer. The Toronto Nationals lacrosse team uses the field for home games, as does the youth academy of the Toronto FC soccer club.

In 2009, the city purchased a cap to cover and protect the field, allowing the Caribana festival to hold outdoor concerts in the stadium without ripping up the playing surface.

And as of last year, the field is available for use in any season, thanks to the acquisition of a winter bubble.

The $1.2 million bubble was supplied by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment as part of its deal with the city to install natural grass at BMO Field in Exhibition Place, where its Toronto FC team plays.

"We said to them okay, you say you need a grass field to attract the top soccer players in the world, fair enough, we'll let you do that, but you have got to put some money into upgrading Lamport," Perks says. "You've got to give us a bubble that goes over the field in the colder months so it becomes an all-year facility."

Although the field now gets more use, Tite says the 36-year-old sports facility is an eyesore that needs to be addressed. For starters, the city should get rid of the 9,000-seat stadium that surrounds the field, he says.

"It gets used once a year and that’s for Caribana," Tite says. "The whole site and its use needs to be rethought and designed in a way to fit [the neighbourhood’s] needs."

While acknowledging that change was overdue, Perks defends taking a cautious and considered approach to Lamport’s future.

"Instead of thinking we have to turn this into a world-class stadium overnight and we'll do whatever deal we needed to do to accomplish that, we thought, ‘What can we do reasonably with public resources that's achievable in the short term,’ and that was the way to go.”

Lamport Stadium's lighting and electrical systems have been renovated and consolidated in the west end of the property, Perks says. The next step in the revitalization process could be to open up the east end of the stadium entirely.

"Every year or two years we are making a significant improvement towards that master plan we have of really enlivening the space."