WESTFIELD — The grand opening and ribbon-cutting for the $12.1 million Westfield High School athletic complex has been pushed to Oct. 2 due to the late arrival of some materials.
Chief Procurement Officer Tammy Tefft told Reminder Publishing that the stadium is not complete.
“We just added a ticket booth, storage shed and sod, and we’re a little behind schedule,” she said, adding that while the stadium remains closed to the public, some teams started practicing on the field last week.
Tefft said the delay is mostly due to the late arrival of masonry for the concession building, which houses the bathrooms. She said General Contracting Solutions is constructing the building.
“The arrival of the masonry block was delayed, through no fault of theirs,” she said. “That is the active construction on the site. A lot of the inability to feel comfortable opening is the lack of actual bathrooms on the site.”
She said the contractor has been working double time to get it finished, weekends and nights.
Tefft said the overall project of the three fields, including the two fields at Boardman, one artificial and one natural grass, has gone well. “The project on the whole has gone very smoothly. The contractor Mountain View Landscapes has done a phenomenal job with the three fields. Boardman is up and running, and soccer and field hockey are practicing on it since Aug. 24,” she said.
Tefft said Mountain View added a second set of bleachers to the complex. “All of that they rolled with us and continued to move the project forward. If the masonry had been able to arrive on time, the concession stand and bathrooms would have been able to open on time,” she said.
As for the late additions of the ticket booth and storage shed, which weren’t in the original plans, Tefft said, “We were under budget, and so we found some additional things to enhance the whole complex for the students and the fans that we weren’t sure we could afford in the beginning. The athletic director was very keen on some of those changes.” She said the whole project is still under the appropriation.
“We are still continuing to work to have everything checklisted and done. We’re excited to see the kids being able to practice on Tuesday,” Tefft said. “A couple of weeks to have this complex where it should be is to me phenomenal.”
When asked about the communication between the athletic departments and the teams about the delay in the opening, Tefft said she is not privy to that information.
Through a partnership with Westfield Gas & Electric/Whip City Fiber, the city of Westfield and Westfield Public Schools, the new facilities include a lighted track, a stadium with an all-sport turf field and refurbished girls athletic and Boardman fields at Westfield High School. Funding is being provided from the Whip City Fiber division of WG&E, which pledged to give $1 million annually, for a total of $11 million, in addition to its annual payment in lieu of taxes to the city.
The Westfield City Council authorized an $11.1 million bond for the athletic fields in June, 2024, which will be covered by the G&E payment. In February of 2025, the City Council approved an additional $1 million in free cash for the construction of a new concession stand and bathrooms for the stadium project.
