Cornine Field at the Streeter Recreation Complex Wins County Award
Friday, November 08, 2019The Morris County Park Alliance recently held its Community Recognition Awards and presented the Township of Morris’s Cornine Field at Streeter Recreation Complex with its Parks and Recreation Facility award. Committee member Stephanie Brumby presented William Foelsch, Director of Parks and Recreation with an attractive glass plaque and a New Jersey State Joint Citation provided by Assemblyman Anthony Bucco.
The original football/sports field was built in 1993-94 over a capped municipal landfill on property donated by the Streeter family. This legendary field was known as a “mud pit” during its years of operation. After extensive research and investigation of a possible site for the development of synthetic turf facilities Cornine field was selected. The redevelopment design of Cornine Field was planned to meet the needs of youth football and cheerleading, youth soccer, girls and boy’s lacrosse, and youth baseball and softball. This includes field availability for after school practices of Morris School District athletic teams. The ultimate goal of the project was to provide a weather resistant synthetic turf field complex that would provide the community’s first facility with recreational field sports lighting.
With extensive experience in synthetic turf design, Suburban Consulting Engineers were hired in 2011 to begin conceptual design of the field. In preparation of the final field design in 2013, a series of test holes were bored in the field surface to test the suitability of soils for the footings of the sports lighting towers. One of the test holes was drilled into a previously undetected pocket of methane gas. The Township immediately ceased all public recreational activity on the site, resulting in considerable disruption to youth football and lacrosse programs for many years.
The Morris Township Committee, understanding the need for the landfill remediation to protect the local residential properties and to protect the adjacent Whippany River watershed, endorsed the negotiated remediation plan, ultimately appropriating over $ 2,850,000 for the landfill remediation and synthetic turf and sports lighting project. Cornine Field was constructed and opened in April 2019.
The overriding concept as described by Bill Foelsch for the entire facility is to support school based and non-profit youth sports activities. Under current operating guidelines, this facility is not available for adult sports, nor is it open to for-profit organization rentals. Seasonal schedules have been brokered to give maximum practice and game time during the seasons of operation to recreational youth sports users. During the first season of operation, the facility is scheduled and fully subscribed from 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm on weekdays and from 8:00 am to 9:30 pm on weekends. User ages have ranged from 6 years to 17 years.