Markeshia Ricks Photo
Boyd: More work needed.
Weeks before Hillhouse plays its first football game at its the new $16.4 million Bowen Field, Howard Boyd and some Hillhouse parents aren’t celebrating.
At a tour for the media, they pointed out leaks and what they called safety concerns that they believe mar the long-awaited renovation of the stadium and running track. The renovation project, which was 20 years in the making, cost $16.4 million. It featured, among many other improvements, a new synthetic turf field, and for the first time in Hillhouse history, field lighting for night football games.
This gate swings onto the track …
“Overall, is this really our money’s worth?” Boyd, a Pop Warner little league coach, said while surveying the stadium Friday. “No. I’ve seen better and I think there are a lot of safety issues that need to be handled.” He and a group of parents pointed out problems they said the city should address before declaring the project complete.
Will Clark, chief operating officer for the Board of Education, said he has the group’s list in hand. Many of those items identified by the boosters are also on the school district’s own “punch list” of problems that need to be addressed before the project is deemed complete and any final checks are written. He called the renovation project a success and the punch list a normal part of completing a project. (Click here for a story showing all the new features at the field.
… and scrapes and unlevel surface.
On Friday, Boyd pointed to away-side stadium seating with exposed sharp edges underneath; and a discus and shot-put area that could endanger the people who might be sitting in those stands during a track meet. He pointed to gates that swing into track lanes when opened in one direction and scrape an uneven ground when opened in the opposite direction.
Runoff in the pole- vaulting area.
He showed a pole vaulting area covered in goose feces and run-off. He said the area is so close to the trees at the edge of Beaver Pond Park that Boyd thinks it could be dangerous for student athletes.
The turf.
“It looks to me like they took a lot of short cuts,” he said. “For the kind of money they spent, this place should be a showpiece.”
Boosters presented a list of 21 problems they have found with the new stadium that they think the city needs to address. The list includes a call for a fully outfitted concession stand — currently there is no way to cook on site — to adding more showers. (There are currently three.)
Benson.
In an email to parent and booster Bill Oliver, Will Clark wrote that items like outfitting the concessions area are being addressed. Covers for locker room windows had been ordered. Grass that some thought was growing through the turf was actually the result of silt that had washed onto the field, Clark wrote.
“It’s not growing through the field but essentially on it, and that is on the list to remediate and shore up,” he wrote.
Clark said Friday that many of the problems can be addressed and will be addressed. He also said that any money left over from the project could be used to irrigate the baseball field.
“We need to separate fact from fiction and focus on what we can accomplish together in a positive way,” Clark wrote to Oliver.
Whose House? Hillhouse?
Parents watch the first day of practice.
Meredith Benson, whose son is a rising junior on the Hillhouse football team, said the lack of more showers and other problems at the field reflect a general mentality of mediocrity when it comes to student success at the school.
Coach Lytle.
“A lot of money was spent on this field,” she said. “But when you talk to people in power about problems, you get sarcasm. I’m just tired of how our kids are being treated.”
Marker for field’s namesake.
“For the time and the money, this should be the most state of the art stadium in the state,” said Angela Carolina-Brown, whose son plays football and her daughter baseball at Hillhouse.
Benson said she’d like to see the stadium identified as having a connection to Hillhouse athletics. Though Bowen Field is owned and operated by the city parks and recreation department, it also has been the traditional home for Hillhouse sports. Benson noted that student athletes at Wilbur Cross High School play on a field identified as connected to their school.
An inaccessible bike rack.
That’s a sore point for Hillhouse Coach Reggie Lytle, a Hillhouse alum.
“We have no problem sharing the field with Hyde [now Creed]” high school, he said. “But this has always been Hillhouse’s field.”
Boyd at the baseball field.
Lytle said he has brought forward concerns about pipe leakages in the coach’s office and the trainer’s room and unpadded poles close to the end zone. He worries a player could be harmed if he were to run into them.
Parent Sherrie Oliver said her two sons, both seniors, have waited a long time to play in the new stadium.
Landscaping at the new stadium.
“There are just too many things wrong — too many inconsistencies,” she said of the redo. “There is no reason that we should be having this conversation now.”
“It’s a nice space and a lot of good work has gone into it,” Oliver’s husband, Bill, added. “But we also were unaware of how incomplete it was. We want to be involved with helping prioritize solutions so they can be addressed and get done.”
Hillhouse plays its first football game of the season Sept. 9.
At $16.4 million and years in the making, we can say two things:
We can also say one more thing. It would have been good journalism to compare the City's existing "punch list" with the list of problems presented by the complainants. Do they overlap 95%? Just 60%? Are there important flaws the City has missed, or have they basically got it right? I am sure Will Clark would have been pleased to share his list with the Independent.