Harbor Hill students and Roslyn community members should have a number of newly sodded fields to play on next fall, officials said.
The Roslyn Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to approve a $158,400 change order with Sipala Landscape Services of Dix Hills to have the fields sodded instead of seeded.
Sipala’s bid was 88 cents per square foot while the only other bid, from Stalco Construction in Deer Park, was $1.24 per square foot.
“Right now, it’s in the scope to seed the field, and we’ve had experience with that,” Superintendent Allison Brown said. “We’ve also had experience with laying sod down at the East Hills school, and what we found is sod takes better, looks better and is more sustainable.”
The entire area on the east side of the campus will be remodeled this year. The tennis court will be removed along with one of the existing baseball diamonds. One of the two baseball fields will be outfitted for softball games along with the planned Little League field.
There will also be a high school-sized lacrosse and soccer field alongside two U11 soccer fields that could be divided into as many as six fields for smaller children.
The sod will be laid down this fall and will be ready for play in the fall of next year.
Though the space is about 180,000 square feet, Brown said the district plans to sod only about 113,000 square feet.
Brown said the district is also expecting a credit of 18 cents per square foot for the seed, totaling approximately $32,400 for the 113,000 square feet of sod.
Director of Facilities Kevin Carpenter said the new East Hills sod, installed last year, has taken well after a growing season and recommended that the district opt to sod the new fields despite the higher cost.
“If you lay seed down and you get a big rain, you’d have clumps of seed here and bald spots there. It won’t take,” Trustee David Seinfeld said. “It’s too large of a piece of property for seed.”
