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/753045
FACILITY & OPERATIONS 14 SportsTurf | December 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com RENOVATION CHALLENGE: JUSTIN SPILLMAN HONORS HISTORY AT WRIGLEY FIELD which started at the conclusion of the 2014 baseball season, includes structural upgrades, improved player facilities, new fan amenities, outfield signage including two video boards, new premier clubs, expanded concessions, new and improved restroom facilities, and much more. To accommodate the construction around the edges of the field, construction crews, their trucks and equipment need access to the interior of the stadium and use the playing field surface as their staging area. To build an MLB playing surface once is a challenging enough task. To have to do it over and over and over again seems almost overwhelming. But for Justin Spillman, who has had a hand in building more than 70 sports fields under the tutelage of famed Chicago White Sox groundskeeper Roger Bossard, inventor of a patented drainage system now used by 19 of the 30 MLB teams, perhaps the task isn't so daunting. "I think that's one of the reasons why I was brought in, honestly. They knew this was going to take place and needed someone onboard with a little more experience," Spillman says. Spillman originally set out to be a golf course ■ BY STACIE ZINN ROBERTS T he week after the 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs season ended, Manager of Grounds Justin Spillman and his crew of 75 planned to rip up the turf at Wrigley Field. There wasn't anything wrong with the grass, the field played great this season. Rather, they tore out every blade of bluegrass to make way for construction crews renovating the 102-year-old stadium. "The week after the season ends, we'll tear all of the grass out and the construction companies will come in and they'll overrun the whole field with trailers. They'll actually mat the whole field with material that's almost like butcher block to protect our drainage and irrigation. In the spring, we're going to have to put it all back together," Spillman says. "It will continue over the next two to three years where, going into the off season, we'll tear out the field and put it back in the spring." While some cities choose to knock down their stadiums and start fresh, the Ricketts family, owner of the Cubs, decided to invest $750 million to restore and expand Wrigley Field and develop the area around the stadium, all without taxpayer dollars. The renovation plan, known as The 1060 Project, Wrigley Field grounds crew at work.