THUNDER BAY – The grass is growing on a newly constructed outdoor soccer field, which is on track to be playable next spring in time to allow the Thunder Bay Chill to go back to what the club considers home.
The Chapples Park stadium pitch, also known as CP4, is taking shape after the former field was rebuilt from below the ground up to alleviate long-standing drainage issues.
Tom Forsythe, the city’s supervisor of parks operations, said the previous field would often be a mess after rain, with standing water accumulating and areas where the surface grass would be stripped away and left with holes of bare soil.
“The biggest challenge with this area – with all of Chapples and Northwood – is drainage. It’s impossible to maintain a field properly without the right drainage,” Forsythe said on Tuesday. “You can do all the right steps, and if you get a week of rain, everything you’ve done is out the window.”
The project, which had a $1.2 million budget, began last year with the removal of the existing surface and topsoil. A new subgrade drainage system with a sand-based soil mixture was installed, along with an irrigation system connected to the Chapples Golf Course. Final grading was done earlier this year and seeding of the new field began last week.
City administration had originally planned to build two new artificial turf surfaces within Chapples Park where baseball diamonds are currently situated, but pivoted to redoing the stadium field after receiving higher than anticipated project estimates and lack of clarity about potential federal government funding opportunities.
Thunder Bay Chill president Tony Colistro said the club is more than ready to return to Chapples, a venue that was built with soccer in mind. The Chill have played exclusively on the artificial turf at Fort William Stadium since 2015, after spending the previous two years alternating between the two sites depending on weather and pitch conditions.
“We always considered this our home field,” Colistro said. “Obviously we have a lot of memories and history here, with our (2008) championship run. We’re really excited about going back to this field.”
Colistro said the natural grass surface, which provides truer play for the ball and is more physically forgiving, is preferred by players while the overall venue is more spectator friendly.
During this past weekend’s home series some fans asked club officials about whether the USL2 side would be moving back, Colistro added.
“We look at this as more than just an additional surface. This is a top notch surface,” Colistro said.
“Any of those provincial championship games, if we ever wanted to host them, we could always offer this. This gives us another resource that we can use to help ignite or generate associations to come play here in Thunder Bay, whether they’re provincial championships or hopefully a USL2 championship.”
