Will Gig Harbor’s new turf field accommodate varsity football games?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Work on Gig Harbor High School’s lower field is expected mid-May to mid-September.
- The base bid is just under $3 million; adding an LED scoreboard would tack on about $154K.
- District says the new turf will host JV and C teams but not varsity football games.
The Peninsula School District is moving ahead on maintenance and improvements for their athletic fields.
The renovation of Gig Harbor High School’s lower track and field is expected to take from mid-May to mid-September, district Chief Financial Officer Ashley Murphy said. The roughly $3.1 million project, which includes the cost of a possible LED scoreboard, will convert the natural grass field to synthetic turf and add field lighting, relieving the demand for the few other fields in the district where sports can be played year-round.
“It makes it so that kids aren’t having to practice so late because we’re stacking so many different practices on top of each other in the same field area, and also having to coordinate multiple game times on Roy Anderson (Field)” at Peninsula High School, said Murphy.
The district is also hiring a maintenance and grounds coordinator, and has already hired two staff members who will report to that coordinator and focus on athletic grounds maintenance, according to Murphy. Staff have obtained quotes for replacing the infield at the high school baseball fields and purchased a movable pitcher’s mound for the Gig Harbor High School baseball team to use while practicing on the existing turf field at GHHS, according to a capital facilities update presented to the school board April 7.
Varsity games still played at Roy Anderson
The new turf field at Gig Harbor High School won’t really be accommodating varsity football games, Murphy said.
“There’s not going to be built-in bathrooms, concession stands, massive covered bleacher areas, anything like that, so the only place we’re still going to have those type of facilities is at Roy Anderson,” she said. “So we would still want the vast majority of our varsity games being coordinated and handled at that field.”
Gig Harbor’s turf field will be able to host JV and C-team games for soccer and football, she continued. The renovation will also add field lighting, allowing greater flexibility for practice times and games.
Other features of the renovation include respraying the track surfacing and installing 8-foot fencing, The News Tribune reported. The field will have reference marks for boys and girls lacrosse, discus and javelin.
The school board approved a contract with Premier Field Development at their March 17 meeting. The base bid for the project is just under $3 million; adding an LED scoreboard tacks on about another $154,000. The school district had not yet decided whether to purchase the scoreboard when The News Tribune spoke with Murphy on April 20.
The LED scoreboard would be an upgrade from the existing board. Chief of Schools Michael Farmer described the LED scoreboard as a scaled-down version of one you might see at a Mariners or Seahawks game — one that can show videos and game replays.
“ ... it’s a smaller version with somewhat similar capabilities, probably the best way to put it,” he said. The district already has similar LED boards at some of their newer schools, such as in the commons at Pioneer Elementary.
Because the high school is within the city of Gig Harbor, the potential LED signage requires additional city approval. If it fails to pass city permitting requirements, the district also has the option of installing it at Roy Anderson, Murphy said.
Murphy said the district decided to renovate the Gig Harbor High School track and field based on a combination of community feedback and evaluations of the site. In 2022, “there were concerns that Gig Harbor had inequitable access to turf than what the PHS feeder system had,” Murphy said.
“And so based upon community emails and conversations that were out there at that time regarding the inequitable access, the decision was made to move forward in regards to ... doing the preliminary bid work to determine whether or not the lower Gig Harbor field would be a viable location for a capital project.”
Is the district any closer to building a new football stadium?
In 2024, the district moved its annual Fish Bowl football game to Mount Tahoma Stadium in Tacoma because its home football stadium, Roy Anderson Field, proved too small for the crowds of fans that cram into the stands for the game.
“We’ve heard from a lot of community members and parents that they would like to see a new stadium, a stadium with larger capacity for both visitors and our own parents and community members,” Murphy said. “That is something that the district is taking into consideration when it comes to our long range facilities plan.”
The cost associated with building a new stadium rises to the level of a bond, she continued: “It’s not any type of cost that we could absorb within our current funding model.”
She explained that it’s difficult to provide even a ballpark estimate of what a new stadium would cost, especially given recent spikes in gas and steel prices. For a full stadium with grandstands, ADA-accessible parking and other amenities, “you’re talking double digits, when we’re talking in the millions,” she said.
There isn’t a dedicated funding stream from the state or federal government for school athletics. Districts draw on the general fund to cover equipment, nets, balls, stipends and possible benefits for coaches, travel costs for students heading to state competitions and other needs, but the district doesn’t have a single line item dedicated to athletic field renovation or maintenance, according to Murphy.
Dollars funneled to facility maintenance come through local levies — such as the $1 million allocated from the district’s Safety, Security and Technology levy, which passed in 2023. That money is meant for facility maintenance across the district, specifically tied to safety needs, Murphy explained. In addition, the district allocates a chunk of the general fund to the facilities department, which uses that money to fix and repair needs across the district’s buildings.
Renovating the Gig Harbor High School turf field isn’t considered typical maintenance, though. That’s a larger project that the district is funding with interest earned on money they received and invested from their 2019 bond, said Murphy. The district passed the $198.55 million bond for school construction, primarily to address severe overcrowding in their elementary schools and other infrastructure needs, The News Tribune reported.
The district’s Long Range Facilities Advisory Committee is a volunteer group that works with the district to evaluate school facilities, including sports fields, and make recommendations to the school board and superintendent. Committee members serve two-year terms, according to the district website.
