CHANDLER — If you’ve noticed Chandler Unified School District football fields looking less and less green as players and the heat pound the grass throughout a season, you won’t notice that anymore.
At least, not at any of the district’s six high schools.
At a December meeting, the CUSD Governing Board approved a $780,000 contract with Lloyd Sports + Engineering for planning, design, development of construction documents, and engineering for new synthetic turf at all six high school stadium fields.
Tom Dunn, the district’s executive director for support services, made a presentation and took a few questions from the board. He said maintenance and supplies for the six fields will incurr some new costs increase for the district, but not having to water grass or worry about bald or uneven spots regularly will be positives.
Dunn said the $780,000 contract figure is about 6.5% of an estimated $12 million the district will likely end up spending turfing the six fields, at about $2 million per field.
CUSD spokesperson Stephanie Ingersoll said a natural grass field costs the district about $50,000 annually in maintenance, versus a synthetic field that is projected to cost about $10,00 per year in maintenance. Looking at six fields in the district, that would save CUSD about $240,000 per year.
Ingersoll said when the district's athletic director presented to the board at a recent planning session, he used 12 years as a time frame in his presentation, which would be a $3 million saving in maintenance costs over that span. While CUSD is hoping to get more than 10 to 12 years out of its six planned turf fields, that is the life span many Arizona districts have experienced for fields installed after the year 2000.
Ingersoll also said each grass field needs between 2 million and 2.5 million gallons of water every year. At the Dec. 14 meeting, Dunn said being a water-conserving partner within the city of Chandler is an important district priority.
At the Dec. 14 meeting, Board President Barb Mozden asked Dunn what sort of regular and/or annual maintenance are needed, based on prior board discussions.
Dunn said modern turf fields need a special machine for a brushing operation done about three times per week. He also said there are routine inspections for large trash and other items and debris and an annual replenishment of the of the compound of rubber, sand and geofill that helps cool each field.
“Between 3% and 10% of that compound is lost each year,” Dunn said.
Dunn said while the water use savings will be significant, turf fields do tend to heat up more than grass playing surfaces. He said turf fields are typically watered for cooling about 30 minutes before each competition use.
In the weeks ahead, Lloyd Sports + Engineering will educate a team of CUSD coaches and athletic directors about the types of turf and cooling mechanisms available from U.S. manufacturers.
The firm will then walk the Chandler USD team through a selection process for a type of turf and a manufacturer best-suited to Chandler’s needs.
Lloyd Sports + Engineering has been involved with a number of Valley projects, including the turf conversion at Chase Field in Phoenix, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Salt River Fields spring training facility in Scottsdale, the Tempe Union High School District’s conversion of its six fields, Crismon High School in Queen Creek and Desert Sunrise High School in the city of Maricopa.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
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