When the new Grand Junction High School campus opened, it became the crown jewel of Mesa County Valley School District 51 — but it encountered its first hiccup.
The second half of the project included an on-campus baseball field and a soccer and lacrosse field. These fields were scheduled to open this spring and begin hosting games, but an issue with turf shrinkage on both fields delayed that.
In the meantime, the school’s baseball, football and lacrosse teams will play their games at Canyon View Park and other facilities like Suplizio Field.
Football and lacrosse teams will also be able to play on the campus’ artificial turf soccer field.
“It was turfed in mid to late summer, and because we had a dry winter, the turf just shrank because we couldn’t water it this winter. That basically leaves holes in the turf, so once it dried out and shrank, we wanted to keep the kids away because we want to keep them safe. That’s really the main reason we did this,” said Eddie Mort, District 51 maintenance director, adding that the sprinklers in these fields use canal water, which means the fields can only be watered when water is available. in the canal.
“Once we saw that there were some issues, we decided to keep the kids out just to make sure the field is safe and playable, and we’ll make those repairs. Once the water gets into the channel and we can water it, we’ll put in some turf and hopefully have it ready for softball season. The nice thing about the synthetic field is that it’s designed for softball and baseball. Softball starts in the fall and we plan to have them on this field.”
Mort said there was some compaction between the infield synthetic turf and the outfield natural turf on the baseball field due to the fielder used, which resulted in a lip where the two meet.
FCI Constructors, the contractor for the GJHS project, is working on the finish coating to fill in the cracks in the turf.
“The contractor that originally did all the work came in and cut all that turf and brought in some dirt. Once we can start harvesting the turf, they’ll put it in place. It’ll be a few weeks or maybe a month later this year before the kids can go back in, but we’ll have to consider it safe to do that,” Mort said, adding that work on those fields will have no financial impact on the district.
“It’s still under warranty because this project was completed in the middle of summer last year, so we have at least a one-year warranty on it. FCI is always happy to come back and fix things if we see a problem. They were the first ones, as soon as we noticed the shrinkage of this turf, to step in and say, ‘Who do you call for compost?’ repairs.
Mort said the fields won’t be ready when the baseball, football and lacrosse seasons end. He hopes the work will be completed later this summer.
The Daily Sentinel observed the GJHS baseball team practicing on the turf infield this week, so that area could be safely used for practice.
