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When will the new stadium be done? Will we have any home football games this fall? Where will we play football next season? When will construction of the stadium start? These are the most common question asked of the activities department these days. Let me pass on some information and give everyone an update.

The school district did award the bid for the bleachers and press box for the new stadium field. The new stadium field will have approximately 2,000 seats on the home side and 490 seats on the visitor side with the ability to add another 1,000 seats in portable bleachers to the visitor side.

This will be really nice. I hope all those people who have said that they don't go to games because there is no place to sit, will start coming to some games. We will have the capability to host section soccer games and first round state tournament football games.

The construction for the stadium and additional fields will begin in a few weeks. The old bleachers have already been removed and preparation for temporary storage is being made.

This project will include the reconstruction of the track, a new stadium with synthetic turf, and a number of new fields on the west side of the campus with two additional parking lots. This is a big project.

During construction this spring and summer, access to the high school will be limited. There will be access to the front entrance and the parking lot in front of the high school.

Access to the south student parking lot to the pool will be limited depending on when the pavement construction begins.

Access to the PAC area will be limited - approximately half of the PAC parking lot will be blocked off for construction. There will be access to the hockey arena and the varsity and JV baseball fields only. However, there will be construction traffic that will be going between the football field site and the other fields on the west campus.

There will be so much construction activity at the high school and we want to provide a safe environment to all those involved; therefore, access to both the high school building and the site will be very limited.

Completion of this project is difficult to say at this time. Who knows what kind of weather we will have this summer that may delay projected completion dates. We will have to play many "home" soccer and football events at opposing sites or neutral sites this fall.

So when someone asks, "When will the stadium be done?" I simply tell them sometime this fall, and I will have a better answer for you in August.

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