Snowline board weighs turf and track upgrades at Serrano: estimated costs, funding sources and Oct. 21 follow-up

Snowline Joint Unified trustees, administrators and community members debated proposals to modernize Serrano High School’s stadium Friday, weighing a new synthetic track and turf field against continued maintenance and phased grass improvements.

Administrators and staff presented a cost analysis and timetable describing three options: keep a natural-grass field and maintain it at higher levels, install a synthetic track only, or install both a synthetic track and synthetic turf. Bill Flynn, a district staff member who led the analysis, said the district modeled costs over 25 years and assumed synthetic surfaces require replacement about every 12 years while natural grass needs frequent resodding and more labor and water.

Flynn said recent comparable projects put the construction-only cost for a replacement track at about $5.5 million; adding soft costs such as ADA work, restrooms, curbs and fencing could raise that figure and put a full track-and-field project near $7.5 million in current dollars. Flynn said his 25-year projection produced a lifecycle cost of roughly $11.6 million for synthetic track-and-field and about $12.6 million for a maintained natural-grass option, using a 2.5% annual escalation on costs and including periodic replacements and resodding.

Staff emphasized that much of the total cost is driven by site work…