NJSME 2015 Project of the Year Honor Award

The Don Ahern Veterans Memorial Stadium is highly utilized by Bayonne’s active youth and adult community. Originally built in 1966, the 225,000 SF sports complex had deteriorated significantly, and its location on the coast of the Newark Bay subjected it to frequent stormwater flooding, causing significant erosion and rendering the fields unusable for extended periods of time. Because of these conditions, restoration efforts looked to improve the condition of the stadium while increasing the field’s usage and availability. Its location in an urban area strapped for space also meant that it was critical to ensure quick construction completion in order to return the park back to its users.

The stadium originally housed a baseball field with a shared football and soccer field, but with ingenuity and careful planning, the layout was reoriented to utilize the maximum area within the constraints of the existing space. The new layout includes synthetic turf overlay for baseball, softball, football, soccer, lacrosse, and youth soccer, as well as a 10-foot wide synthetic turf walking path. The natural turf was replaced with synthetic turf, as an extensive drainage design had to be employed underneath the fields to combat flooding. Moreover, antiquated lighting was upgraded and replaced. As both of these endeavors can be costly, the project team utilized the Keystone Purchasing Network which enables the purchaser to acquire materials at competitive prices before the project goes out to bid. This gives complete control of costs and quality of materials to the project owner rather than to the contractor.