Last week, the Farmingdale School District officially cut the ribbon to their brand new athletic complex at W. E. Howitt Middle School. The stadiums have been in use since the spring, but Superintendent Paul Defendini wanted to take a moment, on the day of the middle school pep rally, to thank the community for their support in one of the district’s biggest projects.
“At the end of the day, we don’t do anything without the support of the community,” said Defendini. “We are a place that believes that we deserve great things and the kids deserve the best we can offer them.”
The $36 million complex includes new softball and baseball fields, as well as a new multipurpose field, completed in the summer of 2018, for football, soccer and lacrosse, with a newly installed track for various other sports. There are also two practice fields, including a smaller area entitled the “Future Daler” field and the second behind the bleachers. The softball and baseball stadiums are surrounded by netting and signage that says “Home of the Dalers” facing towards home plate from the outfield. All the fields, including some of the surrounding grass around the stadiums, are made of synthetic turf. There is also a new parking lot.
The idea for the athletic complex first came to fruition when the school district was exploring building a new pool, since the one at the Farmingdale High School is entering its 50th year.
“We knew that the pool had exceeded its life expectation,” said Defendini. “We had to think of a plan because we didn’t want our swim program to be diminished. We realized the disturbance it would cause to just knock down the pool that’s currently there and rebuild it in the same spot. We would have had trouble with the water levels over there and we would have to discontinue our programs.”
School officials decided that it was best to keep the current pool open while they build a new aquatic center at the middle school, where, at the time, there was plenty of open field to build on. However, it was over a six month period discussing with local community groups that they decided to go beyond just an aquatic center.
“It gave us the opportunity to look at all of our fields, which haven’t really been addressed for the last decade,” said Defendini. “We started to talk to people about what they thought about it. They were on board and we decided to put it to a vote.”
The bond referendum was proposed and residents got a chance to vote on it in October 2016. Residents had concerns about how it would affect their property taxes. The school district said that taxes won’t be affected too much because an old debt, created when the school moved sixth graders to the middle school and created a full day of kindergarten, is being replaced by this new debt.
“This gives a tax neutral impact on the community,” said Defendini. “No one saved money as a result of this, but the money coming off of the tax roll is more than what is going on. I don’t think you do something like this without some level of concern and we tried to do the best we could to be transparent and open to listening to the community.”
The school district has also opened an intermunicipal agreement with the Village of Farmingdale. Because of concerns of parking, the village now uses the new parking lot in the school’s off hours to get the traffic off the street.
The referendum was passed by a reported 1,610 to 1,390. After a few years of the complex being built, it was rewarding to school officials to see the kids experience the fields for the first time.
“It was early in the morning [when the fields opened] and the baseball team paraded into the facility with their chests out seeing a deep sense of pride of their home field,” said Defendini. “A couple of kids were peering through the fence like little kids in a candy shop. They had their hands over the fence and their jaws were dropped looking at the field. When I let them in, they had a mock game. It was great seeing the amount of pride they have in this and, to their credit, they’ve taken good care of it.”
The aquatic center, which will include one eight-lane pool for the swim programs to use and another pool that can be used by the Farmingdale community, will be built over the next few years. The school district is expected to weigh bids for companies looking to build it and award the project in November.
