Stoney Field renovations finished ahead of new school year

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District has several new facilities going into this new school year. One of those is Stoney Field in downtown Charleston.

The stadium was built in 1964 and, over time, the field started to sink and began seeing lots of ponding.

“The school district contractors came in and we did the surcharge project which is when the contractor brings in three to four maybe five feet of dirt and the project sat for almost a year,” Jason Kronsberg, the Director of Parks for the City of Charleston, says. “People may have thought that there was nothing happening but Mother Nature was doing her work. So the weight of that dirt and gravity was consolidating all of those soil materials that are beneath the field so that consolidation will help minimize future settlement. It’ll settle but it’ll hopefully be less than it had been since 1964.”

The $4.7 million dollar project is a partnership between the Charleston County School District and the City of Charleston. CCSD paid for the synthetic turf field and the city treated and re-covered the stadium seating, added new lights, a scoreboard, sound system and, for the first time ever, added heat and air conditioning to the locker rooms.

With the new field, Burke High’s Athletic Director Deon Richardson says they bought new turf shoes for all the kids in the program and they’ve been practicing and getting used to the new surface.

“We do hope to get the stands filled with the community, alumni, just anyone that wants to come out to the game come out and support the Bulldogs,” Richardson says.

Burke High Principal Cheryl Swinton says everyone is excited about the new facility.

“We are so happy to know that our students and our community, once again, can come to Stoney Field the place that’s near and dear to all of us,” Swinton says.

Richardson says the stands will hold about 3,000 people. The first game is set for Friday at 7:30 p.m. with the Burke Bulldogs taking on the Stall Warriors.

The facility, track and field are going to be used primarily by Burke High School athletics but it’s also going to be open to the community. The city says they’re still working on the hours of when that will be.

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