The school district is the first in the county to get a new artificial grass surface for one of its sports fields
By Janice Podsada
Herald Writer
LYNNWOOD — The combination football-soccer field at Lynnwood High School, which was once a grass field, will re-open Aug. 30 with a new $1.2 million FieldTurf surface, the first of its kind in Snohomish County.
FieldTurf, a synthetic surface that combines plastic grass with a mix of sand and granulated rubber, was recently chosen by the Seattle Seahawks to cover their new football field.
The Seahawks played on FieldTurf last season after their home games moved temporarily to Husky Stadium. In January, the NFL Players Association ranked Husky Stadium as the 12th best stadium in the league on which to play, ahead of seven grass fields. The new materials have also been used by parks departments in Seattle and Bellingham to cover several play fields.
The $1.2 million price tag is a bargain, said Terri McMahan, director of athletics with the Edmonds School District.
Astroturf costs almost twice as much as Fieldturf. And while a grass field costs less — anywhere from $600,000 to $800,000 to install — long-term maintenance costs jack up the price. And grass is delicate; a grass football field can only hold up for two or three months before it needs extensive maintenance. About 100 events per year can be played on a grass field, compared with about 1,500 events on FieldTurf, McMahan said.
Durability is one reason the Edmonds School District, the city of Lynnwood’s Parks and Recreation Department and Edmonds Community College chose to share equally in the cost of the project.
The partners will share the field on a one-third basis.
"We’ve all allocated $400,000, but we hope it will be less. I just don’t know the final figures," McMahan said.
The school district is paying for its share of the field from money that was approved by voters in a February 1998 bond, which earmarked $750,000 for capital improvements. Lynnwood’s portion comes from its 2000 capital facilities plan. And EdCC is paying for its share as part of an expansion project at the college, in which new construction eliminated an undersized soccer field.
"This will be an opportunity for them to have a full-size soccer field." McMahan said.
Although the field is located at Lynnwood High School, its use will be shared by the four high schools in the Edmonds School District. Edmonds-Woodway, Meadowdale and Mountlake Terrace will play their sub-varsity football games and boys and girls soccer games on the new field.
Varsity home games will be continued to be played at the Edmonds School District Stadium, next to Edmonds-Woodway High School.
The project replaces the grass turf. After years of use, the grass field had become uneven, and had built up a "huge crown" at its center, which sent run-off water onto the track field.
Run-off water was damaging the track field that rings the field. As a part of this project, the damaged, pitted track field will be resurfaced.
Last week workers sewed the new field, stitching 35 strips of plastic grass to one another using hand-held sewing machines. The strips are about 160 feet long and 15 feet wide.
This week they’ll distribute about 2-inches of in-fill onto the field. The in-fill is a mix of sand and rubber. The combination of materials gives the field its bounce, and its gentle-on-the-knees quality.
"The general opinion of athletic trainers and sports medicine doctors is this is much more favorable to your joints than Astroturf," McMahan said.
Upkeep will involve brushing the field once a year to keep the sand and rubber mixture evenly distributed. Every few years, new in-fill may have to be sifted onto the field.
"A certain amount of the in-fill will go home with the kids on their shoes."
"The surface at the (Edmonds School District) stadium will need resurfacing in 6 or 7 years. We’ll be watching to see how this field holds up. If this works out, we may go with FieldTurf there."
You can call Herald Writer Janice Podsada at 425-339-3029 or send e-mail to podsada@heraldnet.com.
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