Leveling the playing field
This summer, the Bismarck, N.D., Park District replaced the artificial turf in its outdoor stadium. The new Bismarck Community Bowl field more closely resembles the playing conditions of real grass, allowing soccer teams throughout the region to continue using it for games and tournaments.
Bismarck built the $6 million, 6,000-seat Community Bowl in 1996 to replace an aging, natural-turf field and a surrounding track. The facilities were used by four area high schools, four middle schools, a junior college and a four-year college for football games and track meets.
In addition to accommodating football games, the new field was needed for soccer games, which brought the number of games played on the field annually to approximately 150. Instead of planting grass on the new 86,000-square-foot field, however, officials decided to install nylon artificial turf that could tolerate the area’s extreme weather conditions and the field’s frequent use.
Although the turf proved durable and suitable for football games, soccer teams were less satisfied with the field’s playing conditions. The soccer balls bounced more and rolled more quickly than they did on grass. Teams began calling for more natural turf facilities to accommodate their games, but the Park District wanted to be able to use the stadium for soccer.
Searching for a way to avoid constructing additional soccer facilities, the Park District investigated artificial turf alternatives. The Community Bowl Authority — which includes school, park and city officials — and the User Committee — which includes representatives of soccer and football teams, school athletic directors and the Park District — agreed to replace the nylon artificial turf with polyethylene synthetic grass.
The Park District contracted with Williamsville, N.Y.-based A-Turf to replace the field in the Community Bowl with its Premier-RS synthetic grass. The polyethylene fibers are two inches high and are infilled with a mixture of coarse crumb rubber and silica sand, which holds the fiber up. “It feels like walking on soil,” says Steve Neu, director of parks and recreation for the Bismarck Park District.
The Park District saves money on maintenance because the new field requires only regular grooming with a brush to keep fibers standing up and to re-level the infill material. All the lines for the field are inlaid, so the field does not have to be relined. Additionally, the field does not require regular watering, mowing, fertilizing or seeding. “We would have had to have multiple [natural turf] facilities to accommodate the number of games we are playing,” Neu says. “We’ve got one stadium and one set of lights. We can play double headers there. It is a tremendous long-term cost savings.”
The $360,000 installation was completed Aug. 16, 2003, in time for school teams to begin practicing. The first week after the new field was installed, high school football and soccer practices began, and all teams gave the surface high marks. “The material reacts like playing on a good grass field,” Neu says. “The response has been tremendous. We’re anticipating a greater consistency in the play throughout the whole season because we won’t have to deal with the natural grasses and the ground condition that you would on a natural field.”
Park District officials expect the field to last 10 years. “We would not have seen soccer played at the facility with the former turf, but this is allowing us to bring back the state soccer tournament and regional soccer events, and the people are willing to play on it,” Neu says. “We’ll try to wear it out.”
