PC West & North New Stadiums

[traxx]

I'm kind of on the other side of the fence. I like each school having their own stadium, so it does enhance the community feel. It's hard to feel like you are at "home" when you have to go to your in town rivals campus to play ball in the case of schools like Moore and PC. Now if said stadium was in a neutral area center to all schools involved, that may be a little better.

Agree. I went to North and going to PC for 'home games" just felt odd.

[bombermwc]

Seems like a pretty big waste of money. The current stadium is definitely large enough, has enough parking, and is well maintained. For 5 million each, you're not going to get a very good stadium, you're going to get future bond requests to keep diverting money so the new stadiums can get stuff (better locker rooms/turf/stand expansion/etc). In a time when people spend so much effort to consolidate things, this one seems silly. And to be fair, there was a fairly good sized push in Mid-Del (which is one of the few districts that's always had separate stadiums) to consolidate them to a single larger/nicer facility. You can see with Mid-Del, when you spread the money out to 3 sites, they are end up sub-par.

[Pete]

At both West and North, they already have artificial turf fields and synthetic tracks, plus big practice facilities / locker rooms that have been constructed adjacent to their fields in the last 5-6 years.

Really, the only thing they need to to is add more stands, better concessions and rest rooms. That's why the cost is pretty modest.

[jn1780]

There doesn't seem to be much room at PC west to expand much around the current field.

[chestercheetah]

I agree. Very nice facilities. just needs larger stands and concessions.

[d-usa]

I don't know much about "recruitment" at the public high school level, but could something like this be an attempt to keep parents from moving away to a different district and losing their tax revenue?

[chestercheetah]

There doesn't seem to be much room at PC west to expand much around the current field.

That is what I am wondering as well. The East side of the field seems to be very close to the homes behind it. Not sure how they will deal with that.

[Pete]

I suspect they'll just have the visitors sit on the same (west) side.

But not much room there either.

[mburlison]

Agree. The districts in McKinney, Allen, Frisco all share stadiums. There is an $80 million dollar stadium planned in McKinney, the Allen stadium was $65 million (had some issues, but on track now) and the Frisco ISD will use the "Star" Dallas' indoor 12,000 seat stadium. Each HS does have practice fields and track as Bradh is saying.

[tsou89]

The middle schools use the fields at the school they feed into quite a bit. The installation of the the turf certainly helped in regards to wear and tear. However, there are still a lot of events that overlap and when you consider the use from the Middle schools it's simply too much. Not to mention all the middle schools used to play their games at Capps (formerly Central) and that field is grass and not in great condition.

I think scheduling was more of an issue before all 3 PC schools put in synthetic turf.

Now, they can play as many games as they want and not worry about the field getting worn out.

I don't understand why after all this time this suddenly is a priority for the district. All 3 schools have been using that stadium for almost 40 years now and North and West each have their own synthetic fields and tracks, so really they all just play 1 football game a week there for 10 weeks out of the year. The necessitates one Thursday game a week... Is that such a big deal?

I don't think the middle schools are using that stadium at all any more.


I'm sure there are reasons for this, I just can't figure out what they are.

[Pete]

^

I know it's a lot of events but they've been doing it for decades.

And most that time PC Stadium did not have artificial turf as it does now, and they still made it work.

[tsou89]

Its great they have turf and certainly helps to make sure events are able to be held. But it actually has nothing to do with the actual scheduling, which is done way in advance.

I work in the district and this is a good thing IMO.

[chestercheetah]

I Contacted Globe Construction this is what they said concerning PCW Stadium...

The stadium will be directly south across NW 20th St. There will be stands and a press box on the home side (north) and if money allows, visitor’s stands on the south side.

Still not sure why they're not renovating the existing field. Perhaps they will keep if for JV football. Maybe soccer? Not sure.

[Laramie]

The concern here is where you build the stadium(s). You don't need multiple stadiums built on each high school campus. A district needs a neutral site to build a stadium to be shared by several high schools.

Pirate Stadium @ Putnam City High was built long before West & North High Schools were constructed. Edmond would have been better off building their own stadium to serve three high schools instead of building on the Santa Fe High School campus. Now, all 3 high schools want their own stadiums on site. What's going to happen when Edmond builds a fourth high school?

Oklahoma City I-89 has 11 high schools: http://okcps.schooldesk.net/Home/tab...0/Default.aspx

There are four stadiums: Taft, Capitol Hill, Moses F. Miller (Douglass) & Star Spencer High School Stadium. Northeast High School has a stadium that has been totally abandoned.

[jn1780]

Your Edmond question is easy. They would just build a fourth stadium along with a new high school. The people of Edmond would easily approve it especially when the costs are buried in a new high school budget.

[Pete]

[chestercheetah]

Thanks for the visual. The house in the upper left was taken out a few months ago. 20th street is a potholed mess that feels like a heavy rain could wash half of it away. I guess they will have to fix that as well.

[chestercheetah]

Took a pic of the sign at PCW last night.

[Pete]

PC West.

New baseball field and stadium to the left.

Interestingly, the home and away stands will be on the same (west) side of the field.

[bluedogok]

I drove by West when I was back in town last week to see how it was going. They took out the tennis courts for the softball field and building. It will be nice on campus, the "visitor" stands always sucked for the PC and North games. That was when there would be standing room only for the PC-PC West game. I was told it was funding dedicated for the facility and it was "use it or lose it" money.

I lived in Dallas (Richardson ISD) and Austin and most stadiums were standard high school grade, some were on campus like Lake Highlands. The more affluent burbs districts are the only ones building small college level facilities but then their schools are also huge compared to most places. Here in Cherry Creek school district in the Denver area Cherry Creek HS and Cherokee Trail HS have on site stadiums, Grandview and Eaglecrest play at CT. Some of the other schools play at CC.

[chestercheetah]

Pete,
Curious where you set up the drone at. Graham Ave? I grew up on Graham Circle. I now live on Markwell Place and walk around the school every day.

[Pete]

PC North stadium from yesterday.

[Urbanized]

I’m late to this but according to the article cited in the original post this was to be open for the 2017 season. Based on Pete’s pic above - while it looks like it’s going to be a great venue on multiple levels - it won’t be used this season either. I suppose if it’s turf and not grass they might be able to get it open for a game or two by the end of the season. Any idea why the delays? If it was mentioned upthread I missed it.

[bluedogok]

The new stadium at PC West should be open for this season but they are just modifying what was the existing practice field. Most have gopne to turf because of maintenance costs. We did a number of retrofits for Denver Public Schools here.

[Pete]

The new stadium at PC West should be open for this season but they are just modifying what was the existing practice field. Most have gopne to turf because of maintenance costs. We did a number of retrofits for Denver Public Schools here.

Neither the West or North stadium will be open this season.

There is a slight chance North may play one game but I think that hope is fading.

But both stadiums will be completely finished for the 2019 season.