Why 3 Sumner high school football stadiums needing major repairs will have temporary bleachers again in 2024
Jacob ShamesThree Sumner County football stadiums will need temporary bleachers for the second straight season because construction won't be done in time.
The district won't be able to get steel for permanent bleachers due to a purchasing issue. Instead, construction will begin immediately after the 2024 season in order to have stadiums at Beech, Hendersonville and Portland ready by 2025.
"We didn't want to be in the same position we were in last year, where we were scrambling at the last minute to have bleachers for our fans," Sumner County director of schools Scott Langford told the Tennessean. "Our goal is to have the least impact on our athletes and fans. The hardest part for me is there are seniors who were looking forward to playing in these new stadiums that won't get to."
Portions of the visitors' side of Beech's stadium collapsed in August, four days before the beginning of the 2023 TSSAA football regular season and forced Beech to play its season opener at White House's stadium. The collapse of bleachers at Shackle Island Stadium triggered Sumner County Schools to commission an architectural firm to inspect the county's eight high school stadiums.
The firm's structural assessment report found that three stadiums — Beech, Hendersonville and Portland — needed significant repairs. All three schools used temporary bleachers in 2023.
Why won't Sumner County stadiums be ready for 2024 TSSAA football season?
Fabricating steel is a lengthy process, Langford said. An engineering company takes a geotechnical assessment of the stadium site before creating renderings of the stadium and cutting the steel.
"The easiest way I can think of to explain it is like a giant Erector Set," Langford said. "Then they ship that up here, and it's assembled by a contractor up here. ... It's amazing how fast the steel goes up once it's fabricated, but it's a lengthy process to get it fabricated."
Sumner County Schools worked with Texas-based firm Sturdisteel, which conducted assessments and created renderings.
The district planned to use a government purchasing cooperative, which Langford said would have given them a multiple-month head start on the six- to eight-month process of fabricating the steel and constructing the bleachers. The district would have ordered steel in January and the bleachers would have been ready for fans by August, while construction underneath the bleachers, consisting of locker rooms, weight rooms and other training facilities, continued into the fall.
"State law has said for a long time that you can't use a purchasing cooperative for construction," Langford said. "Most counties and school systems had interpreted that to mean that you couldn't use it for breaking ground, pouring cement, building something new. But we have used it to buy construction materials."
A Dec. 21 audit finding for Williamson County changed things.
"I think they were doing a roof," Langford said. "(The audit said) they couldn't use the purchasing cooperative for the roof because it was comprehensive enough to be construction. They interpreted in that decision that construction materials counted as part of the construction process."
In January, Sumner County Schools reached out to the Sumner County comptroller's office, which informed the district that fabricating steel would count as construction, barring the district from using a cooperative.
As a result, the district will have to allow companies to bid on the construction, which Langford said likely will take place in May or June. Langford expects Sturdisteel, among other contractors, to bid.
While the district could open bidding and get steel fabricated sooner than that, Langford said starting the process now would push the construction schedule against the 2024 season. Beech, Hendersonville and Portland's stadiums would be fenced off throughout the construction and be unable to play at home.
Langford said Sumner County doesn't have enough football stadiums to accommodate all the varsity, junior varsity, freshman and middle school games that would have to be moved from Beech, Hendersonville and Portland, especially considering Shackle Island Stadium is the district's only turf field.
"I don't know that there's a way we could do it and not have a huge impact on fan experience," Langford said. "We would be risking sitting here in July with everything fenced off and construction projects going and then find out it's gonna be October, November before the steel is here."
Beech, Hendersonville and Portland to use temporary bleachers in 2024
Existing bleachers at the three schools have been demolished, as has a bathroom complex at Portland. Maintenance crews will go to those stadiums soon and level the ground so that temporary bleachers can be installed once more. These bleachers will allow teams to play spring games at home and allow Hendersonville to hold graduation at its stadium in May.
"We're gonna see if we can't get them a little sturdier, a little more accessible, since we've got time," Langford said. "But they held up well (last season)."
Langford said the district won't know the cost of the temporary bleachers until companies bid on them, but he estimates it to be around $1.5 million. In October, the Sumner County Commission approved the district's request for $15.8 million to fund stadium projects.
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.