More construction, but will it be ready in time? The West High boys and girls soccer teams are getting a new field, completely decked out in turf and expanded to comply with regulation size for IHSAA soccer. The majority of the parking lot on the south side of the school in front of the soccer field will be closed during this construction. When the field is completed, the first row of parking in that area will be removed to accommodate the expansion of the new field. However, the new field was supposed to start construction in early October but has not yet due to a similar construction project going on at North High School. The project was set to be completed in March in time for the soccer season but these delays might throw a wrench into that plan and could possibly warrant a backup plan for the soccer teams. West High Athletic Director Ms. Lillis has slight concerns about the current situation at the moment.
“I just had a meeting this morning, and no, there’s no solid date, because they’re working on North and … when they get to a point where they can split work, then they’ll come over here,” Lillis said.
She also talked about the potential for alternate plans that the soccer teams might have to use this season.
“I’m anticipating that we’re not likely to hit a deadline where it’s going to finish before the soccer season starts. … So we’ll be working with our two soccer coaches, and finding an alternative to how we’re going to do games and practices,” Lillis said.
Varsity Boys Soccer head coach Mr. Nikolopoulos proposed a different alternative in case the construction for the new turf field cannot get finished on time.
“I think we should propose that it’s like, hey, you’re not gonna finish this on time, so you might as well push it back to the summer, … because then you can get it done in the summer, and you don’t have to deal with these extra parking problems, and you don’t have to develop a backup plan either,” Nikolopoulos said.
If the school chooses to do this instead, it can eliminate parking problems altogether instead of trying to complete construction throughout the winter when parking is at its most chaotic during the school year. One student mentioned some possible solutions that can be done to the parking lot to improve the parking here at West while construction goes on.
“I feel like there’s a lot of space that isn’t being used that we could use, because there’s two parking lots that have tons of open space, … It does get jammed up pretty quick, I feel like you could traffic it a lot better,” junior Mason Allison said.
Allison also suggested a solution to fix a problem in our student parking lot.
“They should fix that pothole. … If we’re so well known for CTE programs; we have these really good construction classes and we can just have them do a project, fill that in with concrete,” Allison said.
Fixing issues like that can not only make the parking lot easier to navigate during the construction period, or even if the construction gets pushed back, it can make the parking lot better and safer as a whole.
Lots of people are excited about this new potential construction and new turf field, but will it be ready in time?
