“We noticed there was an open field there, and we kind of asked the planners what was going on,” KLA Communications Director Neil Healy said. “They really didn’t know what to do with it.”
The field sits alone next to the equestrian arena, across Sports Parkway from the park’s other fields. Making it usable means bringing in extra soil to level the ground, resodding and installing a fence and irrigation system. Healy said he expects that the field will be playable in April—after the new sod has a chance to take root.
The lacrosse association funded the $210,000 project in tandem with the Keller Development Corp., which provides grants for park development using sales tax revenue.
A half-cent sales tax brings in around $3 million per year for the development corporation, according to Cody Maberry, director of community services for Keller Parks and Recreation. The revenue goes to the development corporation's matching grant program for general parks improvement and maintenance. Organizations such asw the Keller Lacrosse Association can also apply for help in order expedite special projects.
After a round of bidding, the contract for the new lacrosse field went to McAllister’s Landscape Inc., a local company that has built comparable sports fields in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Maberry said.
More than 200 players participate in Keller Lacrosse Association programs, according to the association's October presentation to the Keller Development Corp.
Teams up to the eighth-grade level will play on the Keller Sports Park field, and high school teams will continue to play on Keller Independent School District fields because of the demands of their schedules, Healy said.
“It was one field, and that’s all you could put there,” Maberry said. “But that was exactly what lacrosse needed.”
