Farmington School Officials Consider Football Facilities

LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER One idea being explored by Farmington School District is to install a main concession stand and bathrooms under the home bleachers for its new football stadium. Rogers uses this design, as shown above. The visitor’s side has a standalone building with a small concession stand and bathrooms.
LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER One idea being explored by Farmington School District is to install a main concession stand and bathrooms under the home bleachers for its new football stadium. Rogers uses this design, as shown above. The visitor’s side has a standalone building with a small concession stand and bathrooms.

SILOAM SPRINGS -- Farmington school administrators and school board members have been looking at facilities in Northwest Arkansas to select ideas for the high school's new athletic structures for football, soccer and track.

The new facilities will be part of Phase 3 for the Farmington High School campus, though Phase 3 most likely will be built in stages, depending on costs. Phase 3 will include a football/soccer field, home and visitor stands, fieldhouse with locker rooms, office suite, classrooms and weight room, an indoor practice facility, concession stands and bathrooms and a separate track facility.

Their latest tour was earlier this month and they looked at football stadiums at Siloam Springs, Rogers and Gravette high schools.

Bryan Law, school superintendent, said school officials have been leaning toward a concession stand/bathroom facility built under the home stands, similar to one at Rogers High School, but after viewing Siloam Springs, several board members and administrators indicated they liked that design.

Siloam Springs has a large standalone concession stand with restrooms at one end of the football field. A fieldhouse is located at the other end of the football field. Several said they liked the fact the concession stand was built on higher ground than the football field, giving fans a good view of the game. The concession stand also had a large concrete outside gathering area.

The advantage to having a main concession stand and bathrooms under the home bleachers would be maximum land savings, Law said. He added, though, another factor to consider is the flow of people in the stadium and which would work better.

For the next couple of meetings, board members will discuss what they've seen with the goal to nail down decisions so Hight Jackson Architects can begin designing the facilities.

Law said he wants his board and administrators to take ideas from several schools and make those fit Farmington's needs.

"All we have now are rough ideas," Law said. "We want to look at things and steal this and steal that and tweak it a little bit."

Siloam Springs' football stadium will seat 4,000 people, according to Kevin Downing, athletic director. Farmington's facility most likely will seat about 3,500 fans. Siloam Springs also built its facility in stages, for a total cost of $5 million. Downing said the school raised $2 million of the total through donations and sponsorships that will be paid over a 10-year period.

Law brought the group to Siloam Springs to see its press box and then compare that to the press boxes in Gravette and Rogers. He said he thinks Farmington's pressbox will be a hybrid of those. Siloam Springs' pressbox has one floor. Both Rogers and Gravette have press boxes that are two levels.

The group liked things they saw at all three places but the school most likely will have a two-story pressbox. The first level will be used for announcers, press, scoreboard and timeclock. Coaches and filming crews will use the second level.

Other ideas discussed include building a small concession stand, visitor locker rooms and bathrooms under the visitor's bleachers. For Rogers and Gravette, the fieldhouse was connected to a large indoor practice facility.

Another idea Law likes is to install locker rooms and bathrooms under the home stands for the track team. The school plans to build a separate track facility behind the home stands. The track will be similar to the one used by Fayetteville High School at Ramay Junior High.

Mark Haguewood with Hight Jackson Associates architectural firm said Farmington has not decided what the stages will be in building Farmington's football/soccer facility.

Ron Shelby, Hight Jackson chief executive officer, said the firm would develop a full-site plan and then would work with the school to decide which areas to concentrate on first.

"I didn't think we would come up with all the answers today but I want you to think about it," Law told the group at the end of the day.

Those touring the facilities included board members Jeff Oxford, Amy Hill and Wade Cash, athletic director Brad Blew, football coach Mike Adams, high school principal Jon Purifoy, Jarod Morrison, district technology coordinator, and representatives of Hight Jackson Associates.

General News on 02/22/2017