Franklin County opens bids for new soccer field at DW WIlson Sports Complex

            Franklin County commissioners opened bids on Tuesday for a new soccer field for the DW Wilson Sports Park in Apalachicola, but it will be months before any work gets started.

The companies bid on a project to grade and sod a regulation sized soccer field as well as install irrigation and underground utilities.

The work does not include lighting the field.

Bids ranged from about 95 thousand dollars to over 140 thousand dollars.

The county is hoping it will receive a 50 thousand dollar FURDAP grant to help cover the costs of the work, but those grants aren’t funded until late spring, so no work will start before then.

The local soccer program argued that the county should simply pay for the work itself for the good of the program.

There is a quickly growing youth soccer program in the county, but local teams generally have to travel to play because out of county teams like Port St. Joe won’t play on our substandard fields.

The other problem is local teams are practicing on poor fields which puts them at a disadvantage when they play or regulation fields.

Commissioners say they guarantee that the soccer program will get its field, but the county will wait to find out if part of the cost will be covered by the state.

They will also approach the companies interested in doing the work to make sure they will honor their bids for the next 180 days.

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