Hurry-up offense
Weeks into season, contractors scramble to finish Roggy Field
BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer

PHOTOSBY CHRIS KELLY staff Workers Scott Scherer, Kevin Abrahamson, Todd Prevost and Pete Martelli cut out hash marks on Roggy Field. Laying of the turf began last Wednesday and is expected to be completed Oct. 1.

After several delays and many meetings, the artificial turf is being installed at Holmdel's Roggy Field.

The turf was delivered on Sept. 13, according to Township Administrator Christopher Schultz. Installation of the turf commenced immediately, and with the exception of a rain delay, continued throughout the weekend.

The field has been plagued with delays stemming from the discovery in early May that soil problems existed on the site. According to Schultz, a change order was made by the Township Committee in early June to the tune of more than $70,000 to fix soil stabilization problems. Schultz said that work should not have taken long, but by his estimate it took 35 days to fix the problem, setting the final contractual completion date to July 31.

Roggy Field is more than seven weeks behind.

The artificial turf is being laid on Roggy Field in Holmdel as of Sept. 18. The letters being cut out will be sheared and glued to the field.

American Athletic Courts is the general contractor for the project. They were awarded a $1.3 million contract on Nov. 28 by the Township Committee to complete the base work on the site and to oversee the subcontractor in charge of obtaining and installing the turf. That company is IC Improvements.

IC Improvements contracted out to Turf Store, a Georgia-based turf manufacturer that creates real and artificial turf for sporting complexes. According to a letter sent to Michael Luciano of IC Improvements from John Tidwell, a representative of Turf Store, the artificial turf destined for Roggy Field was ready to ship on Aug. 14. In the letter, Tidwell says that delivery of the turf was pushed back at least three times between Aug. 14 and Sept. 8 and that the turf is "tufted and is in storage waiting shipping instructions."

Tidwell said that while the turf had been ready for delivery as early as Aug. 14, it is not uncommon for it to sit in storage waiting to be shipped on site.

"It is normal," Tidwell said. "It happens all the time. There's a lot of things that go on."

When contacted about the delays, IC Improvements representative David Douglas referred questions about the field's delay to American Athletic Court, citing that they were the general contractors and that they would be the ones to answer such questions. Efforts to reach representatives from American Athletic Court were unsuccessful.

Schultz said that now that the turf is being installed, the township is simply waiting for the field to be finished before looking into what went wrong.

"Our position right now is to get this done," Schultz said.

He said that current estimates put the field's completion at or around Oct. 1, 61 days after the contractual completion date and 309 days after its groundbreaking on Jan. 28.

It will take a few weeks more for the track to be laid, Schultz said, but the field will be playable and the teams can practice and host games on it.

Officials frustrated by delays

Until that time, Schultz said that the township and the school district have consulted their legal counsel to see if there is any recourse that can be taken given the field's delay.

Schultz declined to give specifics about what the legal issues might be, for fear of hindering any future action, but said that such a situation is possible.

"We are leaning that way," Schultz said.

Holmdel School Superintendent Barbara Duncan has been a vocal advocate for the field's swift completion, posting updates on the school's Web site expressing more and more frustration over the project's delay.

In one such posting from the first week in September, Duncan said the delays were "frustrating" and that meetings with the contractors were "disturbing."

"Our nerves are frayed as we are given new and later dates for delivery every week," Duncan wrote in the statement. "This is an outrageous situation as we are not provided with acceptable reasons for the delay."

Mayor Serena DiMaso, who has sat in on many of the meetings between the township, the contractors and the school district, said that the school is losing revenue from the games it is missing that could be used to pay down the debt of the field's construction.

"It's so frustrating," DiMaso said a few days before the turf's delivery. "Our hands are tied and there is nothing we can do."

DiMaso also said that legal recourse is an option.

"We are following up with our attorneys," DiMaso said.

Mat-Ab fared better

Several other area school districts have opted to install artificial turf on their high school football fields, citing long-term cost effectiveness as the primary reason to post the high up-front cost.

The Matawan-Aberdeen School District's field was completed in time for the Sept. 16 home game. Their field was started in June.

According to Business Administrator Charles Shay, the district could not be happier with how their field turned out. Barring a few unavoidable rain-outs and a week's delay in the field's delivery, he said it was done in a timely manner.

IC Improvements was also involved in that field.

"I could not have been more pleased with all the contractors involved," Shay said. "Those problems did not exist here at Matawan-Aberdeen."

Shay said that the contractors worked seven days a week to finish the field and that they "couldn't be more positive with how they handed the job."