What’s included in $1.5M upgrades to athletic facilities at Belleville’s high schools?

Belleville Township High School District 201 has begun the process of upgrading athletic facilities at both campuses that will be completed this summer and next totaling about $1.48 million.

The track at Belleville West High School’s Bob Goalby Field is getting resurfaced for $386,000 this summer. Work involves removing the old surface, repairing the base layer and putting down a new, striped running surface.

At Belleville East High School’s Charles Woodford Field, the track requires specific surface repairs and respraying and the artificial surface on the football and soccer field will be replaced. That work won’t happen until next summer.

The track improvements will cost $109,850. The new turf, which will require removal of the old turf and replacement of the sublayer, will cost $984,500.

The projects at both campuses are being completed by Byrne & Jones Construction.

Turf was installed for the first time at Belleville West in fall 2014. Installation of Belleville East’s first turf followed that winter.

The school board at the time approved a $1.38 million loan for the artificial turf project. That loan was then paid off with revenue the district got through the “Turf for the Teams” initiative, which involved private donations from booster clubs, area businesses, families, sports teams and other supporters as well as advertisements on the turf itself on the sidelines.

The district hosted fundraisers with local sports celebrities like Cardinals Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith and Belleville golf legend Bob Goalby, a West alumnus after whom the school district named the field in 2017.

The tracks and turf fields are used for boys football, girls flag football, boys and girls soccer, cheerleading, dance team, boys and girls track, girls lacrosse, and band practices and performances.

When the turf was installed at both campuses about a decade ago, it was expected to have a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Assistant Superintendent Dustin Bilbruck said.

Belleville East was at a point where it was investing in patchwork repairs annually, he said. Since the lifespan of the turf is up, district officials decided it was time to replace it.

“We knew it was coming up, at East specifically, just due to … the amount of play and usage. We’ve had some issues with the seams coming up,” Bilbruck said.

“Given the amount of investment that we’ve made in order to make it playable and safe, year to year here at the end of its lifespan, we felt like it was time to just make the full investment to basically redo the surface and make it right for another 10 or 15 years,” he said.

In the next few years, the district will need to look at doing the same for Belleville West, he said.

The district was planning to do the track work at both campuses this summer, but it pushed the track repairs at East to next summer, when it can be done at the same time as the new turf installation.

The Board of Education approved the proposal for Belleville East’s track and turf project at its meeting Monday evening.

Redoing turf “is a pretty intensive construction project,” Bilbruck said. “We didn’t want to have that amount of construction going on around a freshly-resurfaced track.”

Pushing back the track work at East to summer 2025 when it can be done with the new turf also benefits the district from a cost standpoint, he added.

“You actually get more bang for your buck to do it as a package,” he said.

Additionally, the turf at Belleville West is in better shape than the turf at East, while East’s track is in better shape than West’s.

“That’s just how it works out based on their use,” Bilbruck said.

The $1.48 million for the projects will be paid out of the capital projects fund in the district’s budget.

District 201 sold $7 million in general obligation bonds for the working cash fund in its budget last fall in anticipation of future projects, including the CAVE annex and the track and turf work, Bilbruck said.

The purpose of the working cash fund is to allow school boards to have sufficient funds in their treasury to pay for expenditures, functioning like an internal bank.

At its Monday meeting, the board approved transferring about $5 million of the bond revenue from the working cash fund to the capital projects fund. Some of those dollars will now be used for the anticipated projects.

Other projects

The track resurfacing at both campuses and new turf installation at Belleville East are just the latest athletic facility improvement projects in District 201.

“When you talk about our athletic spaces, a lot of times they’re our most public spaces that are heavily used both by our programs and by programs, you know, outside in the community that come into our space,” Bilbruck said.

Earlier this year, the board accepted a proposal to resurface the tennis courts at Belleville East. Phase one — addressing some of the cracking prior to the season — was completed in the early spring. The full resurfacing of phase two is taking place this summer.

Last summer, the district replaced the gym floor at Belleville East with new maple wood, a process that involved removing asbestos that was part of the sealant on the concrete base. The gym floor at Belleville West was also refinished.

In the spring of 2023, the district revamped the baseball and softball fields at both high schools, including new turf and renovated bleachers and press boxes, Bilbruck said.

The field renovations are being paid for in part through an agreement the district has with Play9 Sports, an organization that runs tournaments across the St. Louis metro area. Under that five-year agreement, Play9 makes a monetary contribution to use Belleville West’s baseball field throughout the summer, Bilbruck said. Those funds are going toward the cost of the turf.

The performing arts centers at both campuses are also getting some TLC. In April, the board accepted a proposal for new stage drapery.