Village Staff Recommends Installing Artificial Turf on Winston Field and Six Pickleball Courts at Crossway

Synthetic turf is proposed at Winston FieldWith the clock running down to finalize the 2025-26 Village Budget, the Village Board held a work session on February 24 to review the staff’s recommendation for improvements to fields and parks.

Their recommendations were the outcome of a comprehensive athletic field and court study undertaken in cooperation with the Scarsdale Schools. The study included a needs assessment, several public outreach sessions and surveys. You can see the field study here.

At the meeting this week, the Village Board considered improvements to Village owned properties including fields and courts. It will be up to the schools to fund improvements to school facilities.

Village Manager Alex Marshall explained that the cost estimates for the work do not include surveying, soil testing, traffic studies or engineering evaluations, all of which will need to be done as part of the work. Therefore, additional funds have been included in the estimates by Village Staff.

The staff recommendations include one new turf field, improvements to natural grass fields, additional parking and restroom facilities and tennis court repairs. See the presenstation here.

Here are the specifics:

At Boulder Brook and Winston Field, the staff recommends the following:

-An artificial turf and drainage improvements for Winston Field.
-Enhancement of the natural turf at Boulder Brook Field.
-The addition of a support building with restrooms at Boulder Brook Field.
-The addition of new access roadway and parking to improve parking at the two fields.

She explained that the projected design/engineering costs would be $795,000 and the construction estimate for the following year would be $5,320,000.

The rationale for the recommendation is that Winston Field is very wet and often not playable. The turf field would accommodate increased playing time during more months of the year, at times when the natural turf is not usable.

Bathrooms are needed on the Boulder Brook side of Mamaroneck Road so that players do not have to cross the busy road to access facilities. And additional parking is needed for the participants and parents.

Crossway

At Crossway, three tennis courts will be relocated and six pickleball courts will be built. Crossway will only have natural turf fields - no artificial turf. This drawing represents the site plan.

At Crossway, the staff recommended improvements to the natural turf rather than the construction of more artificial turf. Though the consultants proposed artificial turf at the site, Village staff decided against it.

The recommendation for Crossway includes:

-Six new pickleball courts
-Enhanced parking by re-locating the three existing hard courts to the other side of the Har Tru courts. 268 parking spots are proposed.
-Drainage and grass improvements to the natural fields.
-A new support building with restrooms
-Moving the entry to the complex to Mamaroneck Road.

The projected design/engineering costs are $886,500 and the estimated construction costs are $5,910,00.

Also in the recommendation are repairs to the cracks on the tennis courts at Scarsdale Middle School and Scarsdale High School.

The cost to repair the middle school courts is estimated at $140,000 and the high school is $150,000.

Since these costs for the tennis court repairs are to be split with the schools, Trustees need to determine if the district prefers to resurface the courts, as recommended by the consultants, or to repair the courts as recommended by Village staff.

Trustee Gruenberg questioned why residents can’t use the high school and middle school tennis courts during the school days since the Village is shouldering the cost.

Also slated for the 2025-26 budget is $300,000 for the replacement of the playground at Aspen Park. Superintendent Gray said that when the Village replaced the playground at Greenacres they learned what the actual costs were to build a new playground. Therefore he plans to allot $300,000 per year in the coming years to replace one playground each year.

The Village is analyzing whether these projects should be financed through the General Fund or by issuing bonds.

Though the community has voiced the need for more field time, the Recreation Department has not provided statistics on how much unmet demand would be satisfied by these improvements. Supervisor Brian Gray will ask the consultants for an estimate.

Commenting on the rationale behind the recommendation, Mayor Justin Arest said, “The goal is to balance economics, the environment and to get more playing time.” He added that the Parks and Recreation Council, PRC, is in favor of the artificial turf at Winston Field.

Supervisor Gray also proposed including $120,000 to repair the all weather tennis courts at Crossway that are now being used for pickleball. He said, “The courts are cracked, there are depressions and grass is growing through the cracks. He also said that the acoustafence panels that have been added to block the noise are too much for the fence posts which are now bending.

Mayor Arest pointed out that these three courts are slated to be moved as a part of the Crossway project so he questioned spending $120,000 on courts that will only be used for a few seasons.

During public comments, students Charlie and Max Geer came to the mic. Charlie said that he “loves playing lacrosse and needs durable Charlie and Max Geer told the Trustees that more playable fields are needed.fields.” He said, “the fields degrade during the season and turn into mud.” He said, “it’s slippery and players hurt themselves.”

His older brother Max pointed out that the JV lacrosse team can’t plan many months because they can only play on the high school turf. He pointed out that when kids can’t play, they waste time surfing the internet.

Anne Hintermeister asked, “Can we get grants to fund some of this? Or can we get community support for funding? How will these costs impact the budget?”

Mayor Arest responded, saying, “We will take care of all grant opportunities. We have heard that Maroon and White and the ISO’s might be willing to raise funds to help. We are going to include a budget line of $2 mm in gifts to offset the construction costs.”

Ralph Geer who heads the youth lacrosse ISO stressed the need for more playable fields. He said, “We struggle to find field time. We have a subcommittee devoted to this. We rent space at the Underdome in Pelham as there is not enough space here. Anything we can do to alleviate the demand would be tremendous.” He added, “I also play in a men’s adult lacrosse team.
We have asked for field time but cannot get any so we have to play at 7 am in the morning.”

Eugenie Rosenthal called in and said, “Is the Weinberg Nature Center being considered as a part of this discussion – or is that a separate discussion?

Mayor Arest said, “I don’t think there are plans for the Weinberg Nature for this budget. More work needs to be done and perhaps funds can be put in for future years.”

Moira Crouch, President of Maroon and White, also called in. She refuted the idea that Maroon and White would help to fund renovations of Village owned fields. She said, “We focus on school district owned properties. We don’t have control over Winston Field.”

Trustee Wise asked the Village to also provide cost estimates for natural turf instead of artificial turf and to look at alternative materials for the artificial turf. He said, “They are not all the same.”

The Mayor said, “Based on our needs, I don’t think all natural turf will meet the needs of the community.”

He continued, “Recycled crumb rubber is a concern. We can look at virgin crumb rubber. There are other materials and new technologies, solutions to the heat that comes off the field. There are tradeoffs – we are not turfing all of our fields, just Winston, and we will get a very usable field and minimize those risks.”