By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
Brandon Schools — The 2023 Bond projects for the summer of 2023 are changing course. The changes pertain to the athletic facility updates, and were presented on Monday night during the Brandon Board of Education meeting, by Brian Smilnak, project architect.
“At Harvey Swanson, for the bond projects, there was $125,000 to resurface the track,” said Smilnak. “When we got into the design and looked at it harder, we just can’t put a new surface down. It needs to be replaced.”
Previously projects that were slated were resurfacing the track at Harvey Swanson Elementary and putting down turf at the BHS soccer field. But, due to the crumbling base of the track, the plan has changed. It would cost another $350,000 to replace the track completely.
“What that would allow us to do is to make a wider soccer field, because the current football field is narrow, only gives us about 185 foot of soccer field width, which is too narrow for the boys to play,” he said. “The intent was to make this field at Swanson a three sport field. It would be for football, boys and girls soccer, and lacrosse.”
The first plan is to remove the track around the Harvey Swanson football field, widen and turf the field, and use that as the varsity soccer field. They would not put in a new track, but would put in a walking path. With this option, there would be three fields available for use for boy’s soccer, girl’s soccer, and lacrosse, including the BHS varsity football field and the BHS soccer field.
The turf will still be replaced at the high school football field as planned. Also, the BHS soccer field would stay grass.
“It would give us another opportunity to host regionals, competitions, things of that nature, it gives us another field as an option to play on,” he said. “At the end of the day you would have three possible fields for soccer to be played.”
The committee is waiting on a response from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to decide if turf would provide the proper drainage to Duck Creek, which is a trout habitat, so the drainage water has to be cold before draining into the creek. If the DEQ says there is not proper drainage, there are a few back-up plans that will be discussed at a later date.