Leveling and raising Tully Stadium’s dated playing surface wasn’t a weekend project. It required 6,300 tons of rock fill, 30 truckloads of poured concrete, and installation of 600 feet of fiberglass drainage and gutters and more than 88,000 square feet of an artificial, grass-like surface called FieldTurf.
Still, project managers reported this week that the $1.25 million field redesign and resurfacing project had been completed three months ahead of its target completion date. The Memorial High football team played its May 15 Spring Game on the new artificial surface.
In the days ahead, football teams from Spring Woods, Northbrook and Stratford high schools will play Spring Games on the new field.
“I am very happy to report that the turf project at Tully Stadium is complete,” SBISD Associate Superintendent for Operations Ruben Reyes told the district’s Board of Trustees members recently. “The high-quality work involved in this project was completed about three months ahead of our initial anticipated completion date. I would like to thank all involved in this project for their hard work.”
The contract for the 15,000-seat Tully Stadium field redesign and resurfacing project is one of the final 1999 Bond Projects. The contract was signed early this year. Site work began in March. Tully Stadium first opened in 1965 with natural grass fields. In the 1970s, artificial turf was installed and it has been resurfaced several times since.
The recent field project, however, involved much more than taking up and putting down new turf. After the old artificial playing surface was removed, the field’s center “crown,” which produced far too much spin for quality soccer play, was raised about 8 inches in the middle of the filed and up to 2 ½ feet near the viewing stands.
The playing surface was raised and leveled after tons of rock and gravel were hauled in. The concrete curbing and fiberglass drainage system were installed and connected to the field’s existing drains and subsurface piping.
The FieldTurf surface system is one of 2,500 such fields installed worldwide. It combines a patented silica sand with cryogenic rubber infill. Surprisingly grass-like, it is designed to allow cleats to penetrate the fiber surface, then twist and release like regular turf.
FieldTurf is stitched together at the seams, not glued. The playing surface at Tully Stadium required 88,300 square feet of artificial turf.
Athletics Executive Director L.P. Jones and other district representatives visited more than a dozen athletics complexes to evaluate different types of playing surface before project bids were sent out.
“We are extremely pleased with the quality of construction and the finished product. I believe now that we have the premier field in the greater Houston area, maybe the premier field in Texas and the United States,” he said.
The FieldTurf system is considered environmentally friendly. Its 1 ½ inch rubber infill is recycled from tires that once filled landfill sites.
SBISD project managers who worked on the field resurfacing project included Terry Bell and Kris Drosche. Lamb and Barger Engineers oversaw the project and Burnside Service Inc. of Navasota, Texas, performed most of the field renovation work. FieldTurf installed the playing surface.
posted 05-16-08
