Rogers Stadium construction rolls on
Rogers Stadium construction as of September 27, 2018
September 26, 2018
By ANDREW HOWE
The construction of Roger’s Stadium was supposed to be done in time for the 2018 Football season. Now it is being pushed back until the football team is supposed to play Bald Eagle.
The seven million dollar renovation on the stadium was proposed at the end of last year and approved earlier this year. The project was started after the baseball season was over. It will involve a new turf, new bleachers, and a new track and field facility.
The record setting rainy summer and first part of the school year has affected the progress of the stadium’s finish. Bellefonte Public Relations Specialist Brit Milazzo had a chance to record a podcast with the project manager Dave Stezin and interview him about the stadium’s progress. The weather is not great for keeping up with the construction though, and at the moment they are leveling the field out preparing to put the turf on.
“It can rain like we have had these huge downpours and we have to wait three to four days to keep working,” Dave said in the podcast.
Earlier in the summer, there were other unexpected delays in where they wanted to have local contractors and there were some contract issues that delayed about four weeks of the field update. The field and bleachers should be done around mid-October. They will need to do the walkways and entrance before anyone is able to use the field.
With the initial delay and all of the rain, I hope to be able to get this finished in time for the Bald Eagle game and allow them(the football team) to have a home game this season — Dave Stezin
The bleachers in the stadium will be only on one side of the field. It will be where the away side of the stadium should be. They will be handicapped accessible and have a press box at the top.
“The capacity will be right around 3,200 which should not be a big problem to sell out,” Dave said.
The trees at the stadium were taken out due to safety reasons. It was deemed easier than having to clean out the pine needles off of the turf and track that will be there.
“There is not an idea of what plantings will be going in the stadium during phase 1. We want to wait and see where there will be room for that,” Dave said.
The construction of the stadium is hopefully going to be sooner than later. Phase two of the construction will be taking place next year in the same time span as it took for phase one. They are hopeful that it won’t take as long as this phase. They should be giving themselves extra time in case next year has the same or even worse weather that we dealt with this year.
