SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/32290
Facility&Operations Clayton Hubbs >> TD AMERITRADE PARK will be the new home to the NCAA College World Series New home for College World Series handles water problems Clayton Hubbs is a former groundskeeper for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Director of Operations for Stabilizer Solutions, Inc the road, the state-of-the-art TD Ameritrade Park will be the new home to the NCAA College World Series (CWS). Much has been said about the great atmosphere and tradition that will be lost with the closing of Rosenblatt, but Omaha officials and the F OR THE FIRST TIME IN 60 YEARS, college baseball’s “Road to Omaha” will end somewhere other than historic Rosenblatt Stadium. Just down NCAA insist that the CWS is gaining much more with the construction of the new sta- dium. The CWS was first played in Omaha in 1950 and is one of college baseball’s longest running traditions. Named after beloved Omaha Mayor Johnny Rosenblatt, building Rosenblatt stadium and keeping the CWS in Omaha became a labor of love through the first 10 unprofitable years. Through the struggle, Rosenblatt Stadium grew to be- come a central piece of not only CWS his- tory, but the Omaha community and economy as well. Almost 60 years after Omaha struggled to keep the CWS, the city was placed in a familiar position with pressure from the NCAA to build a new stadium or poten- tially lose the CWS. In another labor of love, then-mayor Mike Fahey proposed building a new stadium in downtown Omaha. With such a tough act to follow, The Metropolitan Entertainment & Con- vention Authority (MECA), enlisted the help of designers HDR Architects, Popu- lous and DLR, and together with general contractor Kiewit Construction, set out to produce a world-class, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified stadium. Even with the $131 million investment, the new TD Ameri- trade Park has very large shoes to fill. The new stadium is expected to not only create new Rosenblatt-esque memories for fans and players, but must also kickoff what Baseball America calls the “new era of col- lege baseball” for the NCAA. CATCH AND RELEASE Perhaps the least talked about feature of the new stadium may be its most im- pressive. With such high expectations looming, the new playing surface goes above and beyond the traditional ball field, providing a high-tech solution for the stadium’s regulatory concerns and con- tributing large cost savings to the project. ...the field and drainage system balance the need to perform at a highly scrutinized collegiate level with the site’s unique restrictions. 28 SportsTurf | June 2011 www.sportsturfonline.com By