Grand Slam

A New Sports Park Opens in Northwest Las Vegas

The Buffalo-Washington Park features 11 soccer fields and 23 tennis courts. A center court stadium offers shaded bleacher-style seating for roughly 3,000 spectators.

APCO Construction recently completed Las Vegas' newest and largest city park - a $41 million, 110-acre multi-activity complex in the northwest valley.

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The park land, which stretches from Durango to Buffalo drives, between Washington Avenue and Summerlin Parkway, is being leased from the Bureau of Land Management free-of-charge for the next 10 years with options to extend the arrangement.

The Buffalo-Washington Park, its current name, will probably get a more permanent moniker in a year or so, said Councilman Larry Brown, who represents the area.

The park will be "as busy as any in the valley" and will draw residents from nearby neighborhoods as well as league games looking for a place to play, Brown added.

City officials are considering selling the park's naming rights to a corporate sponsor, while the 11 soccer fields might be named after a resident who has impacted the local sports scene. The city has already committed to host the Far West Regional Soccer Championships in 2007, which will bring more than 250 teams of boys and girls ages 12 to 19 to the park.

The 23-court tennis complex, meanwhile, is named for sisters Stacy and Amanda Darling, who were killed in a 1993 automobile accident. The city inked a $1 million endowment agreement with the Amanda and Stacy Darling Memorial Foundation for the maintenance and operation of the facility.

The Darling Family has long been involved in sponsoring youth activities and an annual memorial tennis tournament.

The city is hoping to lure an ATP men's tennis tournament to the complex in February.

The complex features a center court stadium with shaded bleacher-style seating for roughly 3,000 spectators. The complex also has a 7,000-sq.-ft. city-run pro shop as well as a main entry plaza.

Miroslav Misha Jevtic, a professional tennis player since 1994, has been hired by the city to develop programs, camps, tournaments and clinics at the complex.

There were some construction obstacles, including caliche, a crusted calcium carbonate that forms on certain soils and is difficult to excavate with normal construction machinery. Las Vegas Paving Corp., the earthwork subcontractor, blasted 100,000 cu. yds. worth of caliche from the site by using explosive charges.

"With 500,000 cu. yds. of total excavation, we established a crushing operation onsite and reused all of the material as either backfill or Type II aggregate," said Ryan Mendenhall, Las Vegas Paving's project manager.

With access roads, parking lots and roadway improvements along Washington Avenue, the project required a total of 1 million sq. ft. worth of asphalt paving. The nearly mi.-long park has three dog runs, 20 large shaded picnic areas with 96 tables and three canopied playgrounds with rubberized mats.

There is also a 17,000-sq.-ft. open-air fitness center and a 2-mi., 30-ft.-wide track encircling the park.

"The park entailed $90,000 worth of construction a day, with 130 people and 45 subcontractors during the height of activity," said Joe Pelan, APCO's project manager.

The 21-month undertaking entailed 11,000 cu. yds. of concrete, 2 mi. of fencing, 1,100 parking spots and 600 light posts for nighttime games and activities. Seven of the park's 11 fields use Astroturf as well as drought-tolerant landscaping.

"The Astroturf has a 2-in.-thick base course of rubberized pebbles that simulates soil, and its blades of grass are guaranteed not to fade for eight years," said Billy Platt, APCO's project superintendent. "It's the same quality Astroturf used in NFL stadiums."

Designed by Stantec Consulting Inc., the terraced parksite uses approximately 560,000 sq. ft. of Astroturf and 1 million sq. ft. of sod. It's serviced by three transformers, totaling 1,850-kv, and five block building restrooms, two of which have adjoining concession stands for league games.

Although the complex provides residents with a new place to play and exercise, its location initially caused some hesitation from neighbors.

"We used 17- to 20-ft.-tall landscaped berms along Washington Avenue to help mitigate park activity for homeowners on the other side of the street," said Cary Baird, Stantec's project architect. "The berms help push sound up and over the homes while refracting the light from the fields."

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