Cleveland ISD Superintendent Dr. Darrel Myers says the district’s stadium will be ready by next Friday’s first home game.
The final piece of the project – a new press box – arrived Friday, Aug. 31, and crews are expected to work through the weekend and Labor Day to get it installed, Myers said.
“It will take 3-4 days for the work to be complete. After that, the project will be ready,” Myers said. “This was the last piece we needed.”
Over the summer, the stadium’s old bleachers on the home and visitor sides were torn down to make way for increased seating. The $1.62 million project was paid for from the district’s general fund.
“It took us a while to save up money for the project,” Myers said.
The stadium work was performed by Sedalco, Inc. The new home-side seating will accommodate 3,000 people while the visitor side will seat 2,000. The increased seating is needed, Myers said, because the district has grown so much over recent years.
At the time the old bleachers were built, Cleveland ISD was a 3A school district. Over the last five years, it has gone from a 3A to 5A district.
Now that seating accommodations have been made, the district is looking toward adding parking around the stadium. One option being considered is to tear down the old bus barn on the south side of the stadium and us it for home parking as soon as the new service center and bus barn are built on FM 1010.
“It will probably not be enough room for all the cars, but it will add to our home parking spaces. The rest will have to use the student parking area,” Myers said.
By Vanesa Brashier, editor@bluebonnetnews.com