Stretching The Season
Artificial turf gives Alaska fields a fighting chance
By Steve Edwards
In Anchorage, Alaska, where snow and ice pile up for six months or longer, synthetic surfaces are gaining in popularity. These surfaces are expanding recreational opportunities during a limited playing season for youth, high-school and adult athletes.
Since synthetic fields allow more users to play on them than on comparable natural-grass fields, the former have become the standard in new construction in recent years. With a little help from the community, facilities are swapping worn-out natural turf for resilient, multi-use surfaces.
Managing The Costs
In 2008, the field at Chugiak High School underwent a $1.3-million resurfacing project. The following year, Mulcahy Baseball Stadium converted the infield’s grass and dirt to an artificial surface at a cost of nearly $1 million.
Although the up-front capital costs may sound staggering, John Rodda, director of the city’s parks and recreation department, says the expense isn’t significantly higher than for grass fields.
He explains the city put in three natural-turf fields about 10 years ago that cost $2.5 million. During the summer months, however, one field was kept out of play every week to allow time to recover from use, giving the community a two-thirds capacity for its investment. Meanwhile, additional costs for annual maintenance, such as irrigation, fertilization and mowing, were piling up.
Forming Partnerships
The Alliance for the Support of American Legion Baseball in Alaska, a long-time user of the fields, played a major role in the Mulcahy makeover by securing funding. Steve Nerland, president of the Alliance, says the group’s non-profit status helped speed up the process and limit expenses.
“As a non-profit, we can allow in-kind donations; that really kept the cost down,” he says. “There are organizations and companies that are willing to help the community. If the municipality had built this project, it probably would have added 60 to 70 percent more cost. Its process of doing things is just different. And it never would have been finished in six weeks.”
On August 17, 2009, the team--including the Alliance, the city, USKH Inc., providing engineering and permitting, and general contractor Lakeview Construction--broke ground, and then completed the project before the Oct. 1 deadline.
“There is great value here. It is a [municipal] field; the city did own it, and it still owns it. Now it’s just a better field,” Nerland says.
He adds that another group with a long track record with the municipality--the American Legion--provided 90 percent of the maintenance on all the fields it uses. Now the group can spend less time and money on maintenance, and double the number of games played.
Donny Jones, sales manager at FieldTurf, an artificial-surface company, says community support is frequently part of successful projects.
“With the cost of these facilities, it’s usually best to have multiple partners,” he says. “It’s the schools or the cities that generally have the land. If the private soccer clubs or other groups all go in together and share the expense, they get what they want--a great field--and can divvy up the playing and practice time.”
Community partnerships also helped create new field opportunities. Dimond High School was the first to have a rehabilitated field constructed in 2007. The Dimond Alumni Foundation obtained funding and partnered with the school district, the engineers and contractors to build the field over the summer.
Don Winchester, a member of the school district’s Activity Task Force, and then president of the alumni group, says that when the football field was grass, about 20 games were played each season. With the new turf, use increased to 60 games in one month.
“Driving by the fields and seeing people playing is very gratifying,” Winchester says. “I love it.”
Community Support
Rodda says the ability to have multiple users on the fields brings community members closer instead of butting heads over field time.
“It often becomes territorial for the organization that puts in the volunteer time and energy to make it ‘play ready,’ and that organization doesn’t want other people to use it,” Rodda says. “In this case, that doesn’t happen. It’s actually fun to schedule use of the field because everybody comes out ahead.”
In the end, artificial-turf fields added 12 weeks to the playing season--a month and a half both in the spring and in the fall, says Rodda, who was instrumental in the resurfacing at Chugiak High School.
USKH Inc., an architecture and engineering firm in Alaska, provided civil engineering for the new Chugiak field. An aggressive schedule allowed for construction during a school break, with the field opening for the homecoming game.
Chugiak recently finished its second football season on the artificial surface. Principal Rick Volk says the new surface is a far cry from the old one that spent more than 20 years getting beat up during football season, and basically shutting down the field until the following season.
“It was very frustrating for the soccer program,” Volk says. “The plaayers couldn’t play on their home turf during the spring. In the summer, the community couldn’t use the field--that’s when the football booster parents were trying to get it back into a useable state.”
Repairing the field included re-seeding, watering and fertilizing in preparation for the start of Alaska’s football season in July. The bills for repairs mounted quickly--Volk says it wasn’t uncommon for the boosters to spend $7,000 to $10,000 annually just on water for the field.
Round-The-Clock Use
Volk says the new field has had an impact far beyond the school’s student population. One-third of the high-school games played at the stadium this year were from other schools in the district that didn’t have a place to play. Community youth leagues also were able to practice and play on the field, with no adverse impact on the conditions.
“That field was used by a lot of groups, and historically that’s something we wouldn’t allow,” he says. “When we first talked about it, we knew [the field] would be a win-win for Chugiak High School and the community. But it’s gone far beyond what I thought it would. We have teams coming from hundreds of miles away to play on our field.
Once our high school season is over in May, the municipality takes over the facility and it is used all summer for youth soccer and all sorts of things. It’s being used on a regular basis, not just for a few football games each fall.”
Rodda, who was project manager for the Chugiak field, saw dividends almost immediately with youth leagues practicing on the field in the morning, soccer games being played in the afternoon and high-school football games going on in the evening.
“It was one playing surface, and there were no delays, just one game after the other,” he says. “With grass, who would allow a bunch of kids on the field before a soccer game? And who would allow a bunch of kids and a soccer game before a football game? These fields get tons of use now.”
Steve Edwards is a marketing specialist for USKH Inc., which has eight offices in Alaska, Wash. and Idaho. He can be reached via e-mail at sedwards@uskh.com.
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Going Artificial
For a successful transformation from grass to a synthetic playing surface, John Rodda offers the following tips:
1. Homework--Investigate manufacturers, looking for one with a proven track record. The least expensive product may not be the best option.
2. Background--Once you’ve selected a manufacturer, work closely with the company on timing, site preparation and product selection.
3. Talk it up--Involve community members early in the process to get “buy-in.” If they understand the long-term benefits, they are more likely to support the initial capital investment.