State College’s Memorial Field upgrades on track for August completion despite pandemic

The long-awaited completion of State College Area School District’s Memorial Field renovation project is finally in sight.

“We are on track to meet both our projected and substantial completion and final completion,” the district’s Director of Physical Plant Ed Poprik said last week. “We’ll be substantially complete toward the end of July, and final completion is in August.”

Construction on the second phase of the $14.3 million project began in April 2019 after the school board of directors voted on a timeline that, while shorter, required the district’s main athletic field to be closed for the fall season. With the project on track, State College’s football team is set to return to the historic field this season.

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought most construction to a halt in Pennsylvania this spring, an order from Gov. Tom Wolf gave school districts the ability to declare essential projects workable, which allowed the Memorial Field project to continue with no setbacks.

“We were fortunate that the governor gave us that latitude to declare it an essential project,” Poprik said. “And while we had some concern, we did get back in place with appropriate masking and social distancing requirements and were able to catch back up and get on track.”

The first phase of the project began in 2013, with improvements to the visiting team bleachers along Fraser Street. After a seven-month hiatus to focus on completing the high school and elementary school projects, work on Memorial Field resumed last April. A separate renovation project in 2003 included the installation of a turf field and repairs to the stone retaining wall in the south end zone.

Since the project resumed last year, there have been no major unforeseen setbacks, Poprik said, but there were some minor inconveniences — including the field’s location in the heart of downtown State College — that made working on the project difficult at times.

“Most of the site is taken up by the project itself, so there’s not a lot of extra room to work and store materials,” Poprik said. “Obviously, we were aware of that and working with the contractor we were able to make the appropriate provisions ahead of time, like where people are going to park. When you bring in 30 or 40 contractors ... and we don’t have any place for them to park — the contractors need to be aware of that and plan accordingly.”

Work in the final phase included renovating the home bleachers and press box on the Nittany Avenue side, along with new locker rooms, bathrooms, a pedestrian plaza and a permanent concessions stand where the demolished Nittany Avenue Building used to stand.

With most of the major work completed, all Poprik says is left to be done is the interior finishes in the locker rooms.

“Painting the walls and getting all the lockers in, getting all the bathroom plumbing done, getting the heating system installed,” Poprik said. “For the most part the bleachers are about finished, and we’ll be working on the interior and then finally the finishing work will be doing paving, and all of the touch-up work.”

Memorial Field was originally constructed during the Great Depression as a Work Progress Administration project that turned a sinkhole into a football field with bleachers salvaged from Penn State’s Beaver Field. The field has since become a historic State College landmark as the town grew up around it.

These most recent renovations, according to Athletic Director Chris Weakland, will give the public and student-athletes a drastically improved experience.

“I think the seating on the home side is just so much improved,” he said. “Not only just the conditions of the bleachers, but also the spectator view, the access, handicap accessibility, concessions, bathrooms, all the amenities.”

Gone are the days when visiting fans would have to leave the stadium to get concessions or visit the restroom. The new, more cohesive layout will allow fans to do all of that with more ease with the addition of a walkway that connects both sides.

For student-athletes, having locker rooms, showers and a training room on site will make game day much easier.

“We’re going to be able to serve our athletes in a much more thorough way,” Weakland said.