February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By that date, which sources call firm, RIGS must show the financial ability to proceed with its sports complex and headquarters project or risk seeing nearly six years of hard work go for naught.
In March, the City of New York granted the New York GAA a six-month extension.
The city’s parks commissioner, Adrian Benape, then described the GAA’s plan as the “lynchpin of the overall redevelopment of Randalls Island,” which he dubbed a “Central Park for the 21st century.”
The GAA learned last fall that the city would allow it to develop 25 acres on Randalls Island. The project plans include a state-of-the-art stadium with seating for 10,000, restaurant and catering facilities, dressing rooms, a fitness center, and training grounds. There is also the possibility that the GAA could one day take a larger role in developing other areas of the 480-acre island.
And RIGS has recently raised the possibility of enclosing the stadium, most likely with a bubble similar to those used at tennis centers. Although the bubble was not included in the original RFP, New York GAA President Liam Bermingham believes that the city will ultimately support the roof he calls a “win, win.”
RIGS member John Moore has been with the project from its inception remained “very, very optimistic that we will meet the deadline.” As both Moore and Bermingham pointed out, covering the stadium would allow the facility to generate income year round.
Enclosing the field is a recent proposal and it raises a host of questions. The first one being the playing surface. In the past, artificial fields have been extremely hard causing unnaturally high bounces that compromise the game. The hard plastic led to cuts and burns and thin padding between the field, and the concrete base was a danger to the players.
Newer artificial surfaces such as Field Turf are turning up around the country and are far superior to their predecessors. Bermingham spoke of a New Jersey pitch that is being built and said that a group of hurlers will be checking it out to see if the modern surface is feasible for Ireland’s ancient sport.
Moore notes that Dublin GAA club Ballymun Kickhams has “two or three of these fields.” Remembering his own early days in New York, Moore finds it “laughable” that people would dismiss the new surfaces outright when he thinks back to “playing on a field of dust at Gaelic Park.”
Artificial surfaces also require little or no maintenance and according to Bermingham the ones RIGS have been looking at are guaranteed for a least 10 years. That durability would be important for a pitch that will be likely to see constant use from GAA, rugby and perhaps soccer. A rugby group has expressed strong interest in coming on board and renting the pitch to soccer leagues also seems likely.
The bubbles that cover tennis courts are taken down during the spring and summer months and that option would also be available to the Randalls Island project, should the roof plan be adopted. Plans still call for a second pitch, which would not be covered.
If the project does go ahead with the roof, perhaps the biggest beneficiaries would be the New York county teams. A year-round facility would not only allow the Gotham squad to train all year in good conditions; it would also make New York an ideal location for tournament play in the off season. Bermingham told the Echo that the home organization offered New York the Railway Cup, but the November weather was too unpredictable to accept.
The RIGS group has always maintained that the New York GAA’s primacy would be contractually protected regardless of the project’s widening scope. Both Moore and Berminghan reiterated that point this week — comforting words for GAA enthusiasts as the project comes down to the wire.