9/17/2009 4:14:00 PM No blade of grass - and that's fine
Glory days anew for a valued playfield
■ Nova High School senior Liz Zentner (center) recently took to the adjacent Miller Playfield with classmates for ‘three-way soccer’ warm-ups. The playfield at 330 19th Ave. E. officially reopens this Saturday evening. photo/Steve Shay
By Steve Shay
The Miller Playfield at 330 19th Ave. E. took just three-and-a-half months to renovate, but Capitol Hill community activists first planted the seeds of their vision for the improved field two decades ago.
Thanks to them, and Seattle Parks and Recreation, the born-again Miller Playfield will be communally inaugurated with a Grand Opening Community Ice Cream Social this Saturday, Sept. 19, from 6 to 10 p.m.
The public is encouraged to attend, and to bring a Frisbee. Pick-up soccer games will be offered, and free ice cream, too.
The project cost approximately $2.2 million, with Precision Earthworks doing the installation. A few details are still being weeded through, including better utilization of the east-side parking lot and the Miller Community Center's public bathrooms, currently locked shut before evening sports events end. Otherwise, things are good to go.
According to some, the playfield's two acres of new synthetic grass - an American-made product called FieldTurf - appears authentic, and it's softer and safer to play on than AstroTurf. The Queen Anne Bowl was the first in Seattle to use the FieldTurf, about 10 years ago. The turf has since been "planted" in Qwest Field, Husky Stadium and other large arenas worldwide.
"At first I was skeptical, but I looked at the Queen Anne Bowl and tried to pick a blade of grass it looked so real." The speaker is Andrew Taylor, with the Miller Park Advisory Council for Seattle's parks department and chairman of Miller Park Neighborhood Association, which started in 1989. Taylor has been keeping track of the playfield's progress and problems on his blog, capitolhillseattle.com.
"We wanted our park green, but genuine grass won't stand up to heavy use," he said.
"We researched this turf, and the best we can tell it is benign material.
"I have lived right across the street since 1983, and I'm happy to see the new field," said Taylor, an English-born scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "Miller Field always had a nice
open feel, but it's even better now that it is green.
"It once had a crushed cinder surface; then that got washed away over the years and the field became brown dirt. I'd look across the street from my house, and kids playing ball would have dirt all over their upper torso, and all that dust could enter their lungs."
More than health considerations are in play.
"This is a major maintenance project, and the neighborhood deserves it," said Seattle Parks and Recreation's Ted Holden, senior landscape architect and project manager for Miller Playfield. "There is a lot of history here.
"The field is 386 feet by 230 feet," said Holden. "We have three base layouts for softball and Little League on two fields."
"There's a lot of good energy there," said parks department spokesperson Karen O'Connor about the new field. "It's really great for the schools. I'm now translating the grand opening invitations into five languages!"
O'Connor is referring to Nova (alternative) High School and the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center, or SBOC. The two schools just moved into the former Meany High School on the north side of Miller Playfield. Students will play softball, lacrosse and soccer. SBOC serves refugees and immigrant students from countries where soccer dominates.
"We have a number of different activities on the field, like three-way soccer and ultimate Frisbee," said Liz Zentner, a senior at Nova High School who was recently on the field with classmates for soccer.
"For both schools," she said, "sharing this space connects us."
Reader Comments
Posted: Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Article comment by:
niall dunne
Interesting that the health hazards of dust are mentioned here, but not the lead contamination issue surrounding synthetic turf fibers and rubber granules. See this article for an even-keeled summary:
