Restrooms to be open by soccer season
Oregon council: Other upgrades to be ready too
4/7/2014Oregon’s South Recreation Complex will have its new bathrooms ready for the soccer season’s April 22 opening, officials said.
“Our hope is to get everything done before then,” said Joe Wasserman, the city’s parks and recreation director. “We should be done ahead of schedule. It was a tough winter, but our crews got working and got a lot of things done.”
With money set aside from the 2013 capital budget, city council last year approved spending up to $476,000 for the shelter, which also has a concessions stand, and selected A.A. Boos Inc. as the general contractor. Ground was broken in October. Subcontractors include Turner Electrical Services LLC and Mondo Mechanical Inc.
The new restrooms mean that thousands of people who use the complex’s fields each year as players or spectators won’t have to use portable toilets that have been its only bathroom facility.
The 10 soccer fields alone can attract 1,000 people to Saturday matches during the season. The portable toilets were serviced twice a week but still were considered inferior, and council and the city administration were determined to make new bathrooms a distinctive civic amenity.
The new 1,600 square-foot facility will have a men’s and women’s room, each 165-square feet. The men’s room will have three sinks, two commodes, and three urinals; the women’s room will have the same number of sinks but five toilets. Drinking fountains are to be at the entrance to each. The building is located at the soccer fields, on the north side of the Starr Avenue extension.
The restrooms will be part of a building with a concession area equipped for making popcorn, pizza, coffee and hot chocolate, and nachos, and will have a beverage cooler, slush and ice machines, and a work area.
The structure also will have an open-air shelter. Two other proposals were submitted.
Council also budgeted $150,000 for an irrigation system at the fields, but bids came in below that, Mr. Wasserman said. The engineering department will review and send them to council.
Mayor Mike Seferian said the city will make an announcement when the bathrooms are operational, but no formal dedication ceremony is planned.
“Time will tell,” he said, “but I think it will work very nice.”