About 25 people take a look at the plans for a new $3.7-million outdoor field and track at Holy Cross Secondary School
LED lights, eight-lane track planned to give field similar features to TASSS Athletic Field
A new $3.7-million artificial turf sports field planned for Holy Cross Secondary School is about to be built thanks to a partnership between the city and the Catholic school board, who will split the construction costs.
The idea is to create a new field to be used by students and the community, said Coun. Lesley Parnell at a public meeting Monday night at the Catholic school board offices on Lansdowne St. W.
It’s a great idea for the city to have teamed up with the Catholic school board on this project – particularly since the city doesn’t have much flat land for a sports field, she said.
“It’s a great project – it really is,” she said, adding that it has been planned since 2015 and that neighbours and council have all endorsed it.
About 25 people were at the meeting Monday at the Peter L. Roach Catholic Education Centre, the offices of the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board.
The design for the field was on display: it will be lit with LED lights and will feature an eightlane running track.
Gillian Barnes, project manager for the city, said the plan is to start construction in spring 2019 for use in fall 2019.
The cost to build it would be split between the school board and the city, states a city staff report. That means the cost to each is expected to be $1,855,000.
The city had a similar partnership with the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board when it helped build a sports field at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School in 2013.
This new field at Holy Cross will be nearly identical, except it’s not expected to have steeplechase facilities.
Allan Seabrooke, the city’s commissioner of community services, said it’s innovative for the city to partner with both the public and Catholic school boards toward building sports fields: not many cities do that.
“We’re putting our collective needs together,” he said.
He also said it will be the fifth athletic field in the city with artificial turf: there’s the one at Thomas A. Stewart, plus two at Fleming College and one at Trent University.
Holy Cross principal James Brake said at the meeting that it will be good to have a new facility for the students, particularly since artificial turf can handle use earlier in the spring and longer into the fall than natural turf.
John George, the landscape architect who has designed the field, said artificial turf is also environmentally friendly: it doesn’t require irrigation or gas mowers for maintenance, he pointed out, nor does it need fertilizers or pesticides.
But at least one neighbour, Herb Wiseman, said he still doesn’t like artificial turf.
“I think that’s a bad idea,” he said, mostly because it retains so much heat in summer that it’s uncomfortable to tread across barefoot - and that’s a ritual for carefree kids that he’d hate to see gone.