SAYREVILLE – Two artificial turf fields will be installed in an effort to improve on the playing conditions for the youth athletes in the community.
The Borough Council adopted a bond ordinance providing for the construction and installation of one artificial turf field at Veterans Field at War Memorial Park and one artificial turf field at the soccer complex on Bordentown Avenue during a recent council meeting.
The total cost of the project will be $4.2 million, which includes a $1.5 million grant from Middlesex County and a $135,000 down payment. To help finance the project and meet the $4.2 million appropriation not covered by the grant or down payment, the ordinance authorizes the issuance of $2.6 million in bonds or notes.
As stated by Councilman Ricci Melendez, who is the council’s recreation liaison, the artificial turf fields are intended to benefit youths by improving the conditions of the fields that they play on.
The project received praise from John Walsh, president of the Sayreville Junior Bombers football team, and Mary Ellen Dunn, the president of the Sayreville Soccer Club.
“Our facilities have fallen behind,” Walsh said. “In the 2 percent cap world, it’s very difficult. Our maintenance guys work [hard], they do the best they can on limited manpower, limited resources. This [project] is going to allow more of our kids to play without damaging the fields. We can share the fields more and more, have as many teams as we want out there, and we increased our numbers to almost 300 kids in our program after almost not being able to field teams last year.
“We have to have somewhere for our kids to play to match what other towns are getting,” he said. “Our people are first-class, our volunteers are first-class and our kids should have a first-class place to play because our kids are first-class too.”
“I can’t stress enough what these fields are going to do for us,” Dunn added. “We do have five fields, but [there’s] 70 games a field. There are some fields that get used even more based on the age group. And the No. 1 concern is safety of the kids. We desperately need these turf fields for the safety of the kids. We can only do so much on a field that’s built on fiberglass and technically, it’s not pitched the right way.”
Director of Recreation Jerry Ust also praised the project, noting that the artificial turf fields, unlike natural grass fields, can be used throughout the entire year, and do not have to be closed due to weather.
Contact Matthew Sockol at msockol@newspapermediagroup.com.
