$761K bid awarded for Fairfield Township School athletic facility FAIRFIELD TWP. — The expansive new field project planned by Fairfield Township Public School made a huge leap at Thursday’s board of education meeting, when members voted to award a $761,000 bid for the work. The Fairfield Township Board of Education awarded the bid to Fred M. Schiavone Construction from Malaga to install two baseball fields, a football field and a track where the previous township school stood. “It’s going to open up a whole new world for our students,” said Dr. Wanda Carter, superintendent of the district. Carter is relatively new to the district, having been selected as the superintendent last May. The fields, which sit next to the Fairfield Township School building on Gouldtown-Woodruff Road, will give students an opportunity to be physically active, the superintendent explained. New fields and activities will also hopefully keep kids off the streets, she added. The idea for the sports complex started a year ago when plans for the old school demolition came to fruition, according to Richard Davidson, school business administrator. The majority of the funding comes from School Development Authority grants and a refund from the authority when Fairfield first built the new school in 2006. Money for the project, totaling $761,000, is broken up into two portions. The first portion, $637,000, will cover the major site work for the facility. A second portion, $124,000, pays for the track that will wrap around the football field. photo.JPGPlans for the new athletic facility According to Davidson, there was not enough funding to support a track and plans for basketball and tennis courts. However, after discussion, it was decided that the track will take precedence over the courts because it must encircle the football field. Davidson did not want to have to burden taxpayers for funding to complete the project, he explained, so the courts will have to be added at a later date. “We’re scaling the project back a little bit and we’re just going to do the walking track at this time with the funds we have available,” Davidson said. There are plans to return to installing courts later on down the road. “We’re going to see what we can do in the future to extend the project and find alternate ways of funding,” Davidson said. The school district does not have a date, as of yet, when ground will be broken for the facility, although the business administrator anticipates a start in late August.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 13:05:19 +0000