The Copper Sky Recreation Complex in Maricopa, Ariz., is a 110-acre facility that has become the "crown jewel" of the city's park system. Features include more than a dozen sports courts and fields, playgrounds, an aquatics center and a fishing lake. Earthscapes, a full service landscape and maintenance company founded by Haydon Building Corp. in 2006, installed many of the park elements, including the sports fields, dog park, landscape plantings and a pedestrian path.

 

Earthscapes installed approximately 35 acres of grass in a tight five-week window that was alternately affected by monsoon storms and brutal Arizona heat. About 75 percent of the grass was installed via hydrostolon application, in which sand-based tiff way 419 cuttings mixed with fertilizer, mulch and water were shot from hydroseeding equipment onto a graded and pre-soaked sand base.

Copper Sky Recreation Complex is an active sports complex in the city of Maricopa, Ariz., designed and constructed on 110 acres of former farm and cotton fields. Haydon Building Corp., a general building and heavy civil contracting firm based in Phoenix, Ariz., was selected for the project. J2 Engineering & Environmental Design served as the lead designer for civil engineering and landscape.

The completed site includes four lighted multi-use sports fields, four unlighted multi-use fields, a championship four-plex softball/little league baseball diamond complex and parking lots. Restrooms, a concession building, a maintenance building and a storage yard were also included.

Additional facilities include a large public events area, an amphitheater and a five-acre urban fishing lake surrounded by fishing nodes and picnic ramadas.

The complex also features a dog park, skate plaza, two basketball courts, two sand volleyball courts, two tennis courts, horseshoe pits, group and individual picnic ramadas, and a north and south play area with swings and rock climbers. Most of the park's landscape, including the sports fields, dog park, pedestrian path, horseshoe pits, lake landscaping and fish habitats, were completed by Earthscapes, Inc., a full service landscape company founded by Haydon Building Corp. in 2006.

Irrigation and Sports Fields
The daunting scope of Earthscapes' work at Copper Sky began with the installation of the irrigation systems and sports fields. A subcontractor installed the irrigation pumps, beginning with 16-inch mains fed from a five-acre lake installed by another contractor, which is fed in turn by the Central Arizona Water Project. The pumps, which run on a loop system, taper down to three-inch mains at their smallest point. Once the irrigation was put in place, Earthscapes turned to the installation of the turf, which covers about 54 acres above a sand base. Earthscapes hauled in about 70,000 tons of sand for placement across the multiple sports fields, setting a 6- to 12-inch base above a prepped sub-base of dirt.

"We've been seeing more and more sand-based fields out here due to the volume of play that our sports fields get," said Michael Rhode, Earthscapes' Director of Operations. "The recovery time on a sand-based field is much faster for the turf, it's easier to maintain once it's established, and it takes a beating much better than regular turf."

To prepare the field sites, workers prepared the dirt sub-base before adding the sand layer. The sand was wetted for compaction, and lasers were used for grading to make sure the surface was solid and smooth. For approximately 75 percent of the grass, crews applied stolons, or cuttings of perishable plant material mixed with mulch, water and fertilizer that was "shot' onto the ground with hydroseeding equipment.

"With stolons, your water volume and water usage is almost quadrupled here in Arizona, because the evaporation rate is so quick," Rhode said. "We were literally running cycles of water on the stolons every 12 minutes."

Rhode had crewmembers on site around the clock during the stolon application and watering process to make sure the embryonic turf survived the installation and grew enough to survive the dormancy period that begins in mid-October. At the height of the grow-in period, Earthscapes applied about two million gallons of water per day to keep the stolons growing. Once completed, daily irrigation needs were tapered off to about 150,000 gallons per day.

The lake at Copper Sky was set up for fishing, requiring Earthscapes to monitor pH levels and establish underwater structures made of pipe, tires and pallets to create an ecosystem and shade for the fish. The lake was installed by a subcontractor, and also feeds the park's irrigation system.

About 70,000 tons of sand was put in place during construction, filling in the sand volleyball courts and providing a 6 to 12 inch base for the sports fields.

Five acres were set aside and bisected for two dog parks (background, right). Stolons were applied to both sections above a dirt base. At the outset of construction, an acid injector was installed within one of the irrigation pumps to bring down pH levels in the soil to ensure acceptable growth rates for the grass and trees.

About 50,000 tons of stabilized quarter-minus material was installed for the pedestrian path, which traverses the entire complex and covers about one square mile in total, surrounded by plantings of drought-tolerant sedums and grasses. The contractor worked with a new city staff of 25 employees for three months after the park opened to establish maintenance practices, which included proper mowing levels for the sports fields and training on the irrigation system.

Challenges
The greatest obstacle to construction was managing the desert conditions, for the plant material and working crew alike. Earthscapes had as many as 65 workers on site, often in shifts, to manage the input of the new grass.

"On the first day we shot [the stolons] it was 119 degrees," Rhode said. "We lost some of that initial section and had to go back and reshoot, because they were pretty much dead before they hit the ground "?(R)? the heat out here at certain times of the year isn't only hard on the materials we're putting in, but it's also hard on our guys."

The water pumps ran on temporary power sources, and if one or two cycles were missed during the initial period, as little as 45 minutes without water could cause the crop to fail. Crews were also on hand for several monsoon storms, and had to shut the water off during a two- to three-inch rain event during the installation to prevent flooding. Ongoing soil testing led to the discovery of a high pH content in the soil early in the construction process, which required several heavy acid applications through one of the irrigation pumps to correct the soil and ensure good growth rates for the grass and trees.

Maintenance
When construction was complete, Earthscapes maintained the site for three months, and began working with a new parks staff hired by the city of Maricopa to oversee the Copper Sky complex and other large regional parks in the area. During the installation, the city hired a new director of parks who had no prior knowledge of the project, and had to be familiarized with the site, including the irrigation system and pumps, turf maintenance and weather needs.

"We walked them through the irrigation pumps and everything else that was done, and looked at how they wanted to maintain their fields – figuring out the heights for the grass, how the infields on the baseball fields would be set up – which took a lot of communication back and forth," Rhode said. "When the park opened, we were both doing maintenance out there, and we turned sections over to them as they were completed, until the end of the 90-day period."

The complex was completed in early March, and hundreds of locals gathered to celebrate the site's grand opening on March 15, 2014. The Copper Sky complex has become the "crown jewel" of Maricopa's city parks, and has become a destination for Maricopa residents and neighboring communities.