KEEPING SCORE

Snowy Crawford Stadium video shows renovation progress

TOWAMENCIN >> Weeks of winter weather have slowed down work on parts of renovating North Penn High School’s Crawford Stadium, but there’s plenty to do elsewhere.

District officials heard an update on the stadium project Monday night, and saw a unique look at the stadium as it continues to take shape.

“At Crawford Stadium, we have: the exterior building wall sheathing was installed, the building has been closed in for temporary hearting, the entrance canopy has been framed, the scoreboard was installed last week,” said project construction manager Bill Slawter.

Construction at Crawford started in June 2020, on an $8.2 million rebuild of a stadium built in the early 1970s with a synthetic field surface, wider ramps and concourses, drainage upgrades, new athletic and amenities buildings, and up-to-date infrastructure. Since the last construction update in January, Slawter told the school board’s facilities and operations committee meeting on Monday night, the two new athletic and amenity buildings at the stadium entrance have been closed in for interior work, including duct work and wiring that are “almost complete,” a press box has been hoisted and installed atop the recently reconstructed bleachers, and work on the field itself has been stopped due to snow.

“We have completed the manufacturing of the field turf — it is ready for shipment, and sitting in

the warehouse in Georgia, waiting for us to release it,” Slawter said.

Permits on file with Towamencin Township for the project are currently being renewed to reflect calendar year 2021, Slawter told the committee, and work is being done on the bleachers and buildings while weather prevents upgrades to the field, with a tentative deadline of mid April to finish the fiber optic connections between the stadium and adjacent high school. The next few weeks should see the roof and siding on the new buildings finished, along with mechanical work and finishes inside, plus permanent plumbing and power connections to replace temporary ones running now.

As he spoke, Slawter showed a video taken by the district’s NPTV channel of drone video from above the stadium, showing the snow-covered field surrounded by construction trailers, the two new buildings at the entrance, and footprints trekking through the snow below new lights, fences and goalposts.

“As you can see, everything is very white, and got whiter today. We continue to keep clearing the snow and watching the weather,” Slawter said.

“Next week’s forecast looks pretty good, to let things dry out a little bit and maybe get started again,” he said.

No critical items are behind schedule at Crawford, but the bleacher work is running two months behind the original schedule, which would have had them done in December but now looks likely in March, and the same goes for fencing around the site.

“Non-critical items, nothing to do with the opening,” he said.

An issue reported in January with excess soil on the site looks close to resolution, Slawter said: “We think we can lose it on site, and we’re continuing to work on that,” and more will be known once spring weather allows the soil to be spread on berms already built around the stadium.

Committee member Cathy Wesley asked for specifics on the turf field currently being stored in Georgia, and whether it made sense to bring and keep in the district. Slawter said that delay was deliberate, and the contractor storing it has provided guarantees that it’ll be safely stored until March.

“We prefer to have it stay in the warehouse right now, until we’re ready to install it. We don’t want to expose it to temperatures, in case it gets brittle,” he said.

“As soon as that turf goes in, keeping people out of that stadium is going to be a nightmare until the perimeter fence is up. There’s plenty of time in the spring, so we requested they hold off on installing that until spring was here,” Slawter said.

Wesley asked when the project would be considered substantially complete, and Slawter said “the stadium is still set to be substantially complete in May,” with time for testing of the utilities and field surface before the high school graduation in June.

IMAGE COURTESY OF NPTV Sun shines on a snow-covered roof and field area at North Penn High School’s Crawford Stadium, as seen in aerial drone video shot by the high school’s NPTV channel.

IMAGE COURTESY OF NPTV New light fixtures can be seen adjacent to North Penn High School’s Crawford Stadium, as seen in aerial drone video shot by the high school’s NPTV channel.

IMAGE COURTESY OF NPTV A new press box sits atop recently reconstructed bleachers at North Penn High School’s Crawford Stadium, as seen in aerial drone video shot by the high school’s NPTV channel.