Wilbur Cross Celebrates $4.35M Sports Complex Overhaul

Wilbur Cross student-athletes like football captain Giovanni Melendez looked forward to firmer synthetic-turf footing and a home-field setting to be proud of next season — at a press conference marking $4.35 million in mostly state-funded renovations to the East Rock school’s athletic complex.

That press conference took place Friday in a Mitchell Drive parking lot adjacent to Wilbur Cross High School’s main track and field. As of two weeks ago, that venue has turned into an active construction site replete with heavy equipment and hard-hatted workers instead of joggers, coaches, and teenaged athletes.

Melendez, a 17-year-old junior at Cross and alt-tackle on the football team, joined a half-dozen classmates and even more top neighborhood, city and state officials to celebrate a comprehensive three-phase redo of the Cross, Rice, and Blake fields to take place over the coming year.

As City Engineer Giovanni Zinn explained, these upgrades will include the installation of synthetic turf, a new track, new lighting, and a new scoreboard and public address system on the main Cross field off of Mitchell Drive. It will also see significant improvements to the baseball, softball, and soccer fields at Rice and Blake fields, as well as the renovations of Cross’s nearby tennis and basketball courts.

“Together, it will really be a flagship athletic complex,” Zinn said, allowing Cross student-athletes and neighbors to enjoy a ​“facility that’s comparable to what we see over at Hillhouse and be able to take the high use that we see from our athletics.”

It’ll ​“feel good to play on the field next year,” Melendez said. ​“I helped fight for the turf field for the new athletic” complex. ​“Freshmen coming in now have something to look up to … I’m excited to play next year.”

Mayor Justin Elicker said on Friday that this athletic complex overhaul is funded by $3.1 million in state aid, $750,000 in federal dollars, and $500,000 in city funds.

The presser took place roughly two months after the City Plan Commission signed off on the project following a debate between high school athletes and environmental advocates concerning the harms and benefits of replacing Wilbur Cross’s chronically muddy sports area with a field of plastic fibers.

Time and again on Friday, speakers at the press conference celebrated the prospect of a renovated sports complex that will lift up the entire Cross community.

“Our students deserve the best fields,” Elicker said. ​“It’s a great day for the Governors.”

“Wilbur Cross High School is the largest general high school in the City of New Haven, and it is one that deserves an improved sports complex,” State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney said about the East Rock school, which is now home to roughly 1,640 students. ​“We don’t want anything to be second rate about anything in the City of New Haven’s education system.”

State Reps. Al Paolillo Jr. and Roland Lemar agreed. Paolillo — a Wilbur Cross grad who is also in the school’s ​“Hall of Fame” — said that he drove the same route to Cross on Friday that he did for four years during his time as a student (and student-athlete) at the school. ​“If we want to enhance your experience, these are investments we have to make,” he said to the students.

New Wilbur Cross Principal Matthew Brown described the sports complex upgrades as reflecting well upon the school’s values. ​“We value people being healthy. We value people using their bodies. We value healthy competition. We value getting together, having sports outside … We are grateful and just really eager to get things going.”

“The kids, they deserve a field that’s nice to play on,” said Wilbur Cross Athletic Facilitator Harold Haughton. ​“To finally have a field that’s safe, it’s just overall good for morale.”

“A playable field allows students to play safely,” said East Rock Alder Anna Festa, whose son is currently a student athlete at Cross. ​“It builds school pride. Athletics is also important for the mental health of our children … These fields and parks were lifesavers during the pandemic. … I can’t wait to watch these athletes in action.”