ST. CLAIRSVILLE — St. Clairsville school students can get ready to play on artificial turf at the baseball and softball fields at the Junior Sports Complex beginning this month.

The Parks & Recreation department started a project during the first week of October that will bring artificial turf to the upper two fields with the lights at the Jr. Sports Complex at the park.

Recreation Director Eric Gay said the department is always looking to upgrade and expand the park.

“One of the things that’s important to me,” he said, “when families might be looking to move into town or deciding where they want to live or where the kids want to hang out and spend their time, we want to make sure that you know we have top notch facilities to where people are saying, ‘Man, they have everything that everybody else has.’ So, it’s important we keep upgrading all of our facilities.”

ForeverLawn from Canfield, Ohio, has been working on the project, putting artificial turf on the two of six fields at the complex. Gay said weather has been getting in the way of progress, though the project is still on track to be completed this month.

“So the fields look really good right now,” he said. “We’re very thrilled with getting this done. It’s such a big difference. We’ll be finished by the time the season starts.”

The department applied for a grant in 2023 that was written through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which the grant is a 50/50 match grant. The project is a $1 million project, which the ODNR and the National Park Service, another organization Parks & Recreation had the grant written through, awarded the department the full amount.

Gay said this project is a joint effort between the city, St. Clairsville Junior Sports Organization and the schools.

“I am thrilled to congratulate the city of St. Clairsville on receiving a nearly $290,000 grant for the development of the St. Clairsville Junior Sports Complex. This investment will not only enhance our local sports infrastructure, but also provide our young athletes with a top-notch facility to develop their skills,” Congressman Micael Rulli, R-Ohio, said. “I commend the city leaders and all those involved in securing this grant, as it represents a significant step forward in making St. Clairsville an even better place to live, work, and raise a family. I look forward to seeing the positive impact this facility will have on our youth and the entire community.”

Gay said this project is important to complete because there are too many school kids and not enough fields. The fields will be better equipped for dealing with rain-outs and field maintenance after the turf is done.

“The manpower that it takes to make sure that the fields are ready for the kids is a lot,” he said. “And this will help us out tremendously and the fields just kind of always being ready. Even if there’s a rainstorm, it clears up, fields will be ready to be played on. It’ll be a really really nice addition for everybody.”

Having the fields turfed is beneficial to the schools because they are not going to have to fight the battle of rainstorms in the spring and summer and constantly have to work around them, hoping the fields drain in time. It will also help with cancellations due to inclement weather.

“It takes a lot to get a baseball and softball field ready,” Gay said. “You have to drag them, you have to line them, you have to keep the grass off them. So, this will just make it so much nicer and so much easier for everybody to access.”

The fields are open to the Junior Sports Organization and St. Clairsville school students. Gay said the fields are used primarily by the students and St. Clairsville residents. However, tournaments are played on the fields, so it’ll be nice for out of town people and others playing in the tournaments, Gay said.

Gay said when the grant became available it made total sense for the department to do because it didn’t want to fall behind on the way its facilities look because many other areas in the state have turf fields.

“I can speak firsthand about the attraction that is baseball and softball,” Gay said, “and the need for having the fields that we can play on at all times.”

Gay would also like to thank the public, city, administration and everyone who has supported the department in expanding and upgrading the park. He would specifically like to thank the high school Athletic Director Justin Clifford, Jr. Sports President Matt Lucki and Jr. Sports Board member Matt King for their efforts for this project.

The project is about 75% completed, according to Gay, with the top field, or the premier field, having the artificial turf already down but needing a couple more pieces fastened to it, and the field will be completed. On the bottom field, there’s still some excavating that needs to be done, along with the gravel being placed, and then the turf will go down on that field. Gay said the top field will be playable very soon, while the company continues to work on the bottom field.

“It’s important to me that we just keep building,” he said. “Keeping up with all the other stuff that’s going on … So people aren’t always having to go somewhere else to do these things, that we have them here for the kids.”

Gay emphasized the company is at the mercy of the weather right now, coming out to work on the project on good weather days but not being able to work on it in snow and frigid temperatures.

“I joke about it all the time. It seems like we’ve been talking about this for about the last five years and wanting to get it done,” he said. “And now here we are, at the tail end of it coming to completion. I just can’t thank everybody’s help enough who’s in support of us… It really is a blessing and such a team effort that all of this is getting accomplished.”