Thirteen Years in the Making – Spartan Stadium Replacement

February 24, 2022 1:30 am
This photo is a “Design Concept” of the stadium. The final design hasn’t gone to the board yet and will look different than this, but this offers an idea of what the stadium will look like.
This photo is a “Design Concept” of the stadium. The final design hasn’t gone to the board yet and will look different than this, but this offers an idea of what the stadium will look like.

It has been a long time coming … Spartan Stadium replacement project is finally on the move! The QVSD Board of Directors voted unanimously at their regular board meeting on Feb. 14, 2022, to transfer local timber dollars from the Debt Service Fund and General Fund to pay for Phase 1 of the replacement of Spartan Stadium.

“We are in a fortunate position financially and logistically to make this happen in the current school year,” stated Diana Reaume, Superintendent.

Prior to COVID-19 hitting in March of 2020, the District formed a committee of community citizens who guided the District in forming a vision for the stadium project. “Our committee members worked diligently with our architects to create the current vision for the design and layout of our project. The last committee meeting we held was on March 11, 2020, and we were ready to take the concept and details of the stadium to the board for their approval and to seek funding for the project. And then we were faced with a shut-down due to COVID-19,” Reaume stated. “Everything came to a complete stop.”

The need for a new stadium has been at the forefront of the Board’s goals and is outlined in their 20-year facility plan; board members have heard concerns from community members about safety when attending an event. For many of our aging community members, they have not been able to attend events due to safety issues as a result of deteriorating concrete and stepping, as well as lack of handrails and poor egress to seating.

Phase One of the project will include the demolition of the 1962 stadium, civil and electrical engineering and the building of the new stadium, which is a 1136-seat modular steel and aluminum structure with a three-room press box, purchased through King County Directors’ Association (KCDA), a purchasing cooperative owned by Washington’s public school districts. “If we waited until the next school year, we would be faced with escalating prices and possible supply chain issues,” said Board Chairman Bill Rohde. “We are within a short window of time to make this happen.”

A ticket booth and walkway improvements around the stadium structure and ticket booth will also be included in Phase One. Phase Two, which is scheduled to occur in the 2022-23 school year, will entail the building of restrooms in a separate building adjacent to the stadium and site improvements (such as fencing and asphalt/concrete improvement around the facility). “We already were scheduled to replace old fencing with local levy dollars and will apply for a state grant to pay for a portion of Phase Two,” Reaume said.

The local logging industry has also been a huge plus for the district throughout the past four years. “If we didn’t have a debt for the building of the 2012 Forks High School Addition, we would NOT be able to capture the funds from local state logging in the school’s junior taxing district,” stated Reaume. In tracking these local timber sales, the undesignated unreserved local funds have accumulated over $2 million in the past four years, which are now designated for Phase One of the project. “We can only utilize those dollars for construction or capital projects.”

“We recognize the inconvenience for our spring sports programs of FHS Track and Field, as well as Boys’ Soccer; however, we have scheduled the specifics of the project so that we can still have home-scheduled events safely. Spartan fans will be without covered seating, but will sit on aluminum seats. Given this once-in-a-life chance, we are moving forward,” stated Diana on behalf of the Board of Directors.

Demolition of the stadium will begin sometime mid-March, the stadium structure will be delivered in late June, and construction will follow. Reaume thanks the Board of Directors for their continued support to begin this project, the committee members for Spartan Stadium and BLRB Architects for their work to develop the design concept, and to her staff, Bill Henderson (Director of Maintenance), Kyle Weakley (Assistant Superintendent), and Jan Haugen (Director of Finance) for assisting her to make this happen!