By Brittany Burke

Driving by the athletic fields on Ella Grasso Boulevard there are two things that cannot help but be noticed. The first would be the brand new sign welcoming the passing cars to the home of the Blue Devils, the second happens to be the multiple construction trucks working steadily to renovate the new CCSU outdoor sports complex.

At the closing of the spring semester, the finishing touches of phases one and two of the multi-tiered renovation project were still being completed. Those phases, which included the reconstruction of the baseball and softball fields, as well as a new recreational field, have been finished over the summer hiatus and the next phase of the project has begun.

“We’re very fortunate right now that we have some great facility projects going on outside. Obviously I came in and they had just completed the baseball and softball field projects, so the next phase in that is working on the soccer/track complex which they’ve started,” said Paul Schlickmann, Director of Athletics at CCSU.

The soccer/track complex is an internal project, while the renovations to the football field are to be outsourced to the Department of Public Works and worked on simultaneously with the soccer/track complex.

“They’re cultivating the ground and getting it all set up so they can put down the soccer field, so there’s a couple of different phases to that, but once that’s completed it’s going to be a great outdoor complex and I think it will be one of the better outdoor athletic complexes in our conference which is nice,” said Schlickmann.

Laying the artificial turf is the first step in completing the soccer project, which is set to be completed prior to laying down the track around its perimeter.

“From July to now they made a lot of progress,” said Schlickmann regarding the renovations. “So what they’re doing now, it’ll be an artificial surface for soccer and the next phase would be building the grand stands to go along with that for soccer and also the track so it’ll be a soccer field, track around it, grand stands for football and the grand plan would be for adding seats to the other side of the football stadium so it’s kind of like a multi-tiered multi-faceted phased project.”

The idea for the completed outdoor sports complex is to have a new soccer field with artificial turf, lighting, seating, half time facilities and track around the perimeter much like the CCSU sports complex in the eighties, which has since been removed due to space restrictions.

The final phase of the soccer/track complex would be to add the track, but the project is not set to be fully completed for another eighteen months. With the way construction is moving along, Schlickmann is hopeful to have the soccer field ready for play by the next fall season. The entire outdoor sports complex is projected to be completed in 2012.

Once the renovations are fully completed Schlickmann is confident that CCSU will be home to one of the best outdoor sports complexes in the North East Conference.

“I think it will be one of the better outdoor athletic complexes in our conference which is nice…it’s great for first and foremost for our athletes to have state of the art facilities to train and compete on, and it’s great for recruiting… I think it speaks to the progress we’re making as an institution,” he said.

As of right now, the main focus is for the outdoor athletic complex to be completed with no plans in the near future to begin refurbishments to the indoor complex, according to Schlickmann’s blog.