By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles School District will be getting its first-ever synthetic turf multi-purpose athletic field after the School Board approved the funding for the Monroe site near Roosevelt Elementary.
The new field, scheduled to be installed and ready for play by the Fall of next year, will ensure year-round playability for any number of sports, and will save a lot of money in terms of maintenance costs in the long term.
Maintenance Director Nolan Duce:
“Sports fields, you’re putting a lot of labor in and with that labor, you’re also paying benefits. And so, when you look at the labor and benefits and then the water, a huge amount of work to keep it green, to keep it looking good, and to keep it in shape. We don’t have enough fields to support the youth that we put on them. And so there’s times where they just get tore up and we have to close them up.”
Irrigation alone of a grass field can cost as much as $40,000 per year. The new field will cost about $1.6 million, partially funded from the voter-approved capital levy that passed in February of 2020. Additional funding will come from the sale of some District real-estate and savings from previous construction projects.
Duce says the all-weather, year-round field will be used for football, soccer, baseball and other sports, and is expected to improve the competitive level of our athletes.
“One of the things that we see is that when we’re practicing on grass, and we play a team that practices on synthetic turf, the ball runs faster, it moves different, and so we’re giving them a level playing field as well to play other teams that are playing on synthetic turf. So this just helps them as well.”
The approved funding will pay for the field, fencing, and installation of the electrical conduit for lights planned for a later time when the money is available.
Groundbreaking for the new field will commence next spring, with an anticipated completion date of Fall 2022.