White Plains CitizeNetReporter - City and Board of Education Partner to Upgrade Eastview Fields.

The 2 PM Limited Edition by John F. Bailey, Filed 2/27/02 2:00 PM EST The Mayor’s Office announced Tuesday the city and the White Plains City School District will join forces to resurface the soccer and softball fields at Eastview school with new sod and new track surface oval at a cost of $250,000.

The city will pay $187,500 towards a sodding and track installation, while the School District will contribute $62,500, according to the Mayor’s Office. A WPNCR correspondent attending the Common Council work session last week, reports an artificial surface has not been ruled out by Department of Public Works Commissioner Joseph Nicoletti.

EASTVIEW’S HEAVILY TRAFFICKED FIELDS TO GET "GRASSLIFT": The City and the City School District are combining to resod the soccer field, foreground, and the softball field beyond at Eastview School, (shown at the right), the most-used fields in the city. Fields will be closed two years and soccer games moved to a new location when the defunct Department of Public Works garage (long, low white building to the left) is razed to begin construction of the Westchester One/Stop N Shop Parking Facility.
Photo by WPCNR

Nicoletti Getting the Turf Story

Our correspondent says Commissioner Nicoletti reported that the cost of installing an artificial surface was five times the cost of a traditional resodding. The Public Works Commissioner added that an artificial surface requires more sophisticated below-the-surface drainage construction to avoid flooding on the surface which inflates the artificial turf cost substantially. The Commissioner said he was getting bids on artificial surfacing as opposed to installing a new all-grass surface.

Softball and Soccer fields Planned

Plans now call for a softball field and a youth soccer field to be installed on the two sites. Artificial turf has long been touted as a solution to Eastview field maintenance because the fields are used extensively for adult soccer play resulting in the ragged grass coverage and virtually bare dirt fields which currently exist.

Fields to close for two years.

The site work planned by Nicoletti will close both those fields for two years, according to Deputy Recreation Commissioner Arne Abramowitz, who spoke to WPCNR on the matter Monday. Nicoletti said last week that the site work on the Eastview fields has to be coordinated with the demolition of the former Department of Public Works garage on the knoll overlooking the fields. The DPW garage will be demolished shortly to make way for the construction of the Westchester One/Stop N Shop Parking Facility. That demolotion will begin when the Department of Public Works move has been completed.

Abramowitz said the Department of Recreation and Parks is examining alternative fields for use this summer to stage the adult soccer league games that have relied on the Eastview fields in previous years.


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