FINDLAY, Ohio — Findlay City Schools' athletics fields will have artificial turf installed after the school board approved borrowing $2 million from the district's permanent improvement fund.
By the end of the year, the turf will be installed at three baseball fields, a soccer field and a multipurpose field. Along with upgrading the playing surface, the artificial turf will feature permanent lines for multiple sports to get more usage out of each field.
"Baseball is the only team that uses this," FCS board president Matt Cooper said of one of the baseball fields. "With turf, we can put soccer on here, we can put lacrosse on here to create some practice space for them. And the band can use the multipurpose field."
The $3.5 million project will be paid for in part with money from the permanent improvement fund, but the hope is donors can offset some of the cost and help pay back the borrowed amount faster.
And with facilities that won't be as weather-dependent as grass fields, the district hopes to host more youth leagues as well.
"With the possibilities of this surface, it allows our youth development to go from grades 1-12. So, our student population will be overall affected." FCS athletic director Nate Weihrauch said.
The district will be eligible to host state tournaments with the turf, leading to a new revenue stream.
"The expectation is to be the best, and we want to create that environment here at our facilities," Cooper said. "We believe this is a great step forward for us, and it's long overdue. But we're being very intentional about how many people we're impacting."
The soccer and the multipurpose field will be the first to get turf for the fall sports to be able to play on.
Then, the baseball fields will get their new turf in time for the spring 2024 season.