New Smyrna Beach, FL – Those cheering on the home team at New Smyrna Beach Municipal Stadium will have a lot more room to do so this coming football season.
City officials expect the newly built home bleachers – done for a price tag of over $1 million dollars – to be ready to go when NSB High hosts Port Orange’s Atlantic High on August 21st.
David Ray – the manager of NSB’s 68-acre Sport Complex on Turnbull Bay Road – says construction remains on schedule while city workers are already doing normal preparations for the high school football season.
“The new steel’s up,” Ray added. “The aluminum seating is getting finished pretty much as we speak. They’re gonna be putting all the railings and the VIP section seatback chairs in and doing all the detail work now.”
Construction workers just finished installing all the steel beams that make up the base of the new bleachers, which will hold around 2,700 once all the seats are in place.
The new bleachers replace the ones that were condemned just before last football season by the city after engineers discovered serious rust issues throughout the grandstands and inadequate support for the press box.
“The steel members had shown signs of wear and tear and rust just from being so close to the salty air that just pounds on it on a consistent basis,” Ray stated. “Eventually, it just started showing its age.”
Temporary stands were brought in as fans for the home team – be it NSB, Atlantic or Port Orange’s Spruce Creek High – were told to sit in what’s normally the visitor’s section on the opposite side of the field.
This year, the 1,000 seats that make up the visitor’s stands – which were re-done just before the 2014 high school football season – will go back to being for the visitors.
The money to pay for the newly created home bleachers – as well as a bigger press box that has a separate booth for radio and television broadcasts – is coming from the city’s pocket, though Volusia County Schools has agreed to pay the city $500,000 over the next 2 years to help with the costs.
As part of that deal, VCS will be able to use the NSB Sport Complex free of charge for the next decade.
NSB High’s varsity and junior varsity football teams will be the primary users this season, with both Spruce Creek and Atlantic opting to have most of their home games elsewhere.
Photos of the new stadium are courtesy of the City of NSB.
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.