The costs of installing turf fields at Leon County High Schools has changed dramatically over the last six years, from $910,000 in 2017 to $2.5 million in 2023 – a 175% increase.
Public records (see below) from Leon County Schools shows that the installation of the turf field at Cox Stadium cost $910,108 in 2017 and the most recently completed turf field, at Lincoln High School, cost $2.53 million.
Media reports in 2022 indicated the cost of the Lincoln installation would be approximately 1.8 million. This estimate was off by over $700,000.
In 2019 when the Leon County School Board voted to move forward with the installation of a turf field at Chiles High School, Tallahassee Reports wrote that the the estimated cost was $850,000. The final cost came in at $1.3 million – a 53% increase.
TR has asked LCS for a comment related to the cost increases.
One of the rationales for converting the fields to turf was the maintenance costs associated with natural fields, approximately $80,000 each year. With the increasing costs of the turf fields, are the installations a benefit to taxpayers? Beyond the money saved in avoided maintenance costs, are there other benefits associated with turf fields?
Check back with TR for answers to these questions.
LCS Pays $2.5 Million for Turf Field at Lincoln High School added by Steve Stewart on
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Wow! After the Astroturf craze, some pro & college fields were redone… with crabgrass. Tough, Less damaging to ankles. Not quite so uniform. Cheap. Cheaper maintenance. Then again, they generally were NOT coping with sink-holes.
@ Criminole = The only Ball Field I know that was contaminated by Chemicals is the one at S. Monroe & Gaines. Cascade Park is there now. Leon High School played a few Games there when my Brothers went to Leon before they closed it down. Some of the Rock Wall is still there with a couple of the Pay Windows still intact. It was so bad that a Semi ran off the Road and ended up in the Field and sank to its Axles. Parkway Wrecker was called and they had to suite up ion Hazmat Suites the whole time they were there. It even made the Paper.
@David
Soccer, Lax, JV football play on the field. Varsity plays at Cox. Unless that changed? It was always due to limited seating.
Some guy on Reddit is always harping about these fields have chemicals and cause cancer. Doubt it is true but is always talking about it.
I just hate to keep on harping on what must be a tired, old worn out, so “yesterday” topic to many highly respected and knowledgable readers.
But:
It seems like the entire subject of how vendors of services to the LCSB are showing their great respect and gratitude to Rocky for all the technical, time consuming, decision making process’s Rocky engages in, in order to best determine which vendor to award contracts to has just kind of fallen by the wayside.
It may have something to do with “the passage of time”. A lot of mysterious things involving how government operates are highly effected by “the passage of time”.
Back in the good old days we had the highly transparant, totally fair, process which involved anoymous contributions to some totally legitimant Las Vegas, NV Corporate entities set up by Rocky and, I believe his brother, bestowed with the clever nameing of various versions of the name “HAA HAA Corporations” or something to that effect.
Well time marches on as it always does (again “the passage of time”). The mentioning of The HAA HAA Corp’s became old news and just kind of fell out of the news cycle.
Anyway, lets circle back to the origional issue; how are the selected contractors currently showing their gratitude, honor, and respect [monitarally] to Rocky for all his professional, hard work, and going the extra mile in all Rocky does with respect to which of the honorable bidders are awarded contracts for services to the LCSB?
Before anyone complains about their valueable time they invested to read this long post-I tried to trim it down to as few words as possable and this is what I ended up with.
At what point does the cost outweigh the benefits of high school sports?
And what percentage of our kids can’t read on grade level?
Do they play other Teams on these Fields or are they Practice Fields? Evey Home Game I went to was at Capital Stadium on Paul Russell Rd. at the Fairgrounds.
Not only did we lose money but we also lost our community access because of the cost of these fields. A double wammy for taxpayers, they increased our taxes with vanity projects, then devalue our property by taking away a community asset near our homes. Please sign this petition to reopen https://www.change.org/ReopenTracksLeonCounty
One more bill for the taxpayer…sooner or later, we’ll go broke just trying to pay our taxes.
Any link of this to the recent action by Schoolboard to reign-in Superintendent’s spending authority?
I smell a rat…
This seems to be a bit lacking in information- LCS should provide additional details and explain it more. First, there was a significant issue with a sinkhole at the Lincoln field. I don’t know how much this issue impacted the final expense.
Second, the “track resurfacing” in 2019 should be questioned. The Lincoln track was really just “painted” green- it was a horrible surface, was causing stress injuries to the track athletes, and by 2022 was disintegrating/coming up in large chunks. When the track was replaced in 2023 (in conjunction with the artificial turf installation), the company failed to mix the surface compound properly- it had to be pulled up and redone.
See if LCS will tell you about these issues.
TR,
Looking forward to the updates (and follow the money).
Somebody’s cousin is making a mint.