Despite Memorial Field's sinkhole problem, a $10 million renovation is still in the works

State College Area School District will eventually move forward with a multi-million dollar renovation project for Memorial Field, even with its persistent sinkhole issues.

The $10 million project was slated to get underway this summer and be completed by December 2019, but those plans have been put on hold for now.

"We’re currently very consumed financially and staff-wise committed to our high school project and three elementary school projects," Ed Poprik, district director of physical plant, said. "So, with the vast amount of construction currently going on in the district, we didn’t feel we had the human or financial capital to start this project right at this moment."

The Memorial Field project will likely be delayed for nine months to a year, but the plans haven't changed, Poprik said.

The renovations will focus on the east (home) side of the stadium, he said. Several hundred seats will be added, bringing the current total of 2,400 seats to about 3,000. A new press box will also be constructed, as well as a pathway connecting the east and west bleachers. The first and second floors of the district building at 131 W. Nittany Avenue will be demolished, but the basement will remain intact to build locker rooms and public restrooms. A plaza outfitted with a concessions area will be developed above that area, Poprik said.

In the past five years, the district has already spent more than $3 million in improvements to the field, including new bleachers on the west side, turf and an updated drainage system, Finance and Operations Officer Randy Brown said.

One ongoing issue with Memorial Field is the sinkhole on the property.

During the original stadium project in the 1930s, Poprik said the sinkhole was built up into a formal drainage structure that has since been "successfully" draining stormwater from about 50 acres of borough streets.

Over the years, the movement of water and aging of the hand-built structure led to some shifting of the sinkhole. Though the property is owned by the school district, State College borough is responsible for maintaining and making any repairs to the sinkhole because it acts as a borough stormwater facility, Poprik said.

In October 2012, geotechnical studies found that the sinkhole had caused instability under part of the stadium's home bleachers. It was stabilized, but it created more problems in July 2015. The shifting sinkhole, which measured about 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep, cut through the field's turf.

Brown said the geotechnical studies are done on a regular basis to monitor the size of the sinkhole and to see if any work needs done.

The sinkhole isn't going anywhere; it can only be maintained.

Borough crews rebuilt the entire drainage structure around the sinkhole during the last stadium project about four years ago, Poprik said.

The sinkhole itself hasn't been a cost to the school district, he said. However, any resulting infrastructure damage at the stadium is fixed and funded by the district. Brown declined to put a dollar value on those repairs. The upcoming renovations will be adjacent to but not in the area of the sinkhole, Poprik said.

The school board had considered building a new athletic stadium at a different site, but it determined that maintaining Memorial Field is a better "economical solution."

"When the district decided to retain the high school on its current location, the idea of moving the athletic field was abandoned because we didn’t own enough real estate in the district where we could get access to utilities," Brown said. "...We did research several different locations, but the public access, utility access or some other facet of those sites was cost prohibitive for us to take that on.

"That left renovating Memorial Field as the only option for our main athletic, outdoor competition venue."

The renovation project will be funded by a combination of capital reserve funds that the district has built up and borrowed funds, Brown said.

The amount of money that will be borrowed hasn't been determined, but Brown said it's included in the district's multi-year budget projections. He said the district has the capacity to borrow the entire amount for the project, but they don't intend to because any funds that are borrowed will be repaid with taxpayer dollars.

This story was originally published March 21, 2018 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Despite Memorial Field's sinkhole problem, a $10 million renovation is still in the works."