With spring now just a few weeks away — officially starting March 20 — Centralia Deputy City Manager and Parks Director Amy Buckler announced the completion of the Fort Borst Park field artificial turf project.
“We are so excited to share these improvements with the community,” Buckler said during a report at the Tuesday, Feb. 25, Centralia City Council meeting.
During the report, she invited community members to an open house celebration marking the project’s completion at one of the newly turfed fields, Wheeler Field, on Friday, March 14, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
“There will be some speaking and some thank yous, but overall, it’s an open house format, so come when you can,” Buckler said. “And check out the new turf at Wheeler Field, Field 2 at the softball complex and then also at the quad fields, which are the school district’s fields. There’s going to be a Tiger game going on. There will be Wheeler burgers served, and there will be some other fun surprises.”
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the Centralia City Council unanimously approved a joint donation from the Centralia Athletics Activities & Facilities Foundation and The Wheeler Committee totaling $12,750 to pave the 25-foot by 65-foot gravel area for spectators along Wheeler Field’s third base line.
The goal is to pave the area to prevent mud, dirt and other debris from being tracked onto the newly turfed field through a nearby entrance.
Additionally, the Centralia City Council will hold a joint public meeting with one of its project patterns — the Centralia School District (CSD) — on Tuesday, March 4, starting at 5:30 p.m. inside Centralia High School’s Performing Arts Center, located at 813 Eshom Road.
Among the agenda items for Tuesday’s meeting includes discussion of the Borst Park Sports Complex governance agreement, turfing project status and future potential parking improvements, with a time for public comment toward the meeting’s end.
Turfing the fields at Borst Park has been an ongoing joint effort at a number of the baseball and softball fields in order to make them playable, even if it's still a bit soggy.
Due to seasonal rain keeping some of the fields unusable for weeks at a time going into spring in the past, many tournaments and teams have been seeking fields elsewhere in recent years. The project’s goal is to bring them back to Fort Borst Park. It was carried out by the CSD, the Twin Cities Sports Commission (TCSC) and the Lewis County Public Facilities District (PFD), which focused on turfing the Quad Complex at Borst Park.
At recent Centralia City Council and PFD meetings, it was announced that demand for the fields has already increased. Almost every weekend between March and October has already been reserved by teams or tournaments.
At one point, turfing some of Borst Park’s soccer fields was also considered. However, due to their proximity to the Chehalis River at the south end of the park, it was going to be much more difficult to turf those fields, Buckler told The Chronicle following Tuesday’s council meeting.
She added she is still working with Centralia Youth Soccer to turf the soccer fields, with a memorandum of understanding on the issue to be brought forward for council consideration possibly later in March.
In total, approximately $4.8 million was allocated to turf the fields by all the partners involved, with $1.45 million coming from the City of Centralia’s American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The CSD had a total of $3,370,000 budgeted to turf the fields of the Quad Complex.
A total of $2,430,000 of that came from the state budget. Additional funding came from a TransAlta grant totalling $430,000, and the TCSC provided $110,000 while the PFD provided $400,000 as previously reported by The Chronicle.
