Guilford athletes can look forward to a several new athletic fields this spring. All three fields at A.W. Cox Elementary School are being renovated this fall after years of heavy use.

The two upper fields at Cox school, known as the north and south fields, are being renovated by the engineering firm Milone & MacBroom. Parks & Recreation Director Rick Maynard said his department will repair the lower field. Overall he said the construction will greatly improve the fields, which are currently shut down.

“About this time last year, maybe mid-October, we had to shut those fields down because they were so compacted,” he said. “We had to displace all of the youth teams and the high school girls soccer team that was there practicing. The field was just like shredded wheat.”

The two upper fields have been completely torn up, re-graded, and irrigation has been added. Maynard said the irrigation system will help keep the fields in better shape for years to come.

“It will be safer—the irrigation will help with that and the grading—and it will be designed to be a soccer field,” he said. “I am thinking before it was just an open space and someone said, ‘Hey, let’s make this into a field.’ Now we have been able to do it properly. It will be a good field for many years to come.”

Maynard said the project is moving along nicely. At the Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Sept. 19, the BOS approved $3,500 for a final survey on the fields before grass seed and sod will be put in.

“It will be well worth it to make sure we have the proper drainage,” Maynard said of the survey.

Once the survey is complete. Maynard said the sod will be put in on the north field and grass seed will be put down on the south field, a decision made to maintain cost. Overall, the project will cost $160,000 to complete.

“The goal is to have it done by the first week of October,” he said. “We are still in a good seeding season.

“We are hoping the sodded field will be playable in the spring; probably not the grass field,” Maynard said. “It could be, but I would like to give it two good growing season to get some roots down deep. If you get people on there too soon, it chews it up, so we will have to see how it goes.”

The fields at Cox are heavily used, so Maynard said cleaning up these fields will be an asset to the town.

“Next year in the fall we will have all of the fields back at Cox and we will have the new synthetic turf field at the high school and sodded field, so we should be in pretty good shape next year,” he said. “The youth sports are going to be very happy in the spring when they have those fields.”