It's full steam ahead for a plan to give thousands of young athletes in the Barrie area a new sports field.
At city hall Monday night, Barrie council agreed to work with the Simcoe County District School Board on the project. Council has spent about a year discussing and negotiating with the board to build an artificial turf and track in Barrie.
Last night council approved its share of the project and will start moving forward with the school board.
The new field would be safer than the fields a lot of teams currently have, easier to maintain, and would allow Barrie athletes to stay and play here in the city.
An artificial turf field is something football coach Martin Carl has wanted for years.
“A grass field that's properly maintained is awesome, but we're talking constant use, day after day and when you look at people don't play hockey on natural ice rinks for a reason, they wear out,” he says. “They play hockey on artificial rinks, they're safer when you're talking multi use.”
Currently, the city doesn't have a multi-use artificial field, and neither do any of the more than 100 schools in town. That's why the Simcoe County District School Board has proposed sharing the cost with the city to get one built.
“The fact that the City of Barrie does not have a stadium of any sort, it does not have an all-weather facility such as track or field that's available,” says SCDSB superintendent John Dance. “That’s the same situation we're in as a board with 50,000 students and 100 different schools. I think we have a shared benefit out of this…”
Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman says the cost for a rubberized track and an artificial field would be about $2.5 million, more if stands and washrooms are added. But he expects taxpayers won't be the ones to foot the entire bill.
“One of the nice things about this as well is the community has said to us that they will contribute, not come from taxes, although I’m sure that will be a component,” he says. “A lot of other communities frankly built these facilities a long time ago so we are a bit behind the ball, pardon the pun … so this is good for south east Barrie and good for the whole city.”
The current plan is to build the field in the city's south end, near Mapleview Drive and Prince of Wales Way. The SCDSB plans to build a new high school on this land, and the field would be built next door. In terms of a timeline, the estimate right now is for the field to be ready to go in the fall of 2016, but that depends on the school board and how quickly it’s able to move forward with plans to build a new school.
