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Parks & Recreation

Athletic Field Allocation Project

Barcroft park
BACKGROUND:

Over time the community demand for sports fields for all ages has grown significantly. The diversity of sports played in Arlington has grown, and most sports are played year round rather than seasonally, thereby creating more demand for resources.

DPR developed an RFP to select a consultant to develop recommendations and guidelines for the allocation of field resources in a fair, objective and equitable manner to serve the diversity of sports interests in Arlington.  GreenPlay LLC was awarded the contract in May 2015 to conduct the initial work.  The initial work started in June 2015 with data gathering from community stakeholders via focus groups with APS and DPR staff, DPR sponsored sports groups, DPR affiliate sports groups, and rental groups including social leagues.

The focus of this work is on diamond and rectangular fields and the users of those facilities.

INITIAL WORK:

Phase 1: Data Gathering & Current Field Analysis – Summer/Fall 2015

Phase 2:  Community Engagement; Focus Groups & Sports Commission- Fall/Winter 2015-2016

  • February 2-3, 2016, GreenPlay shared a Findings Report and conducted a Work Session
  • See GreenPlay Focus Group Input Summary and GreenPlay Findings Report and Work Session under Project Documents

Phase 3:  Draft Recommendations – Winter/Spring 2016

  • On June 7, 2016, GreenPlay shared their Recommendations to the Sport User Groups followed by a DPR’s presentation on on-going project work.
  • See GreenPlay Recommendations and DPR Recommendations Follow-Up under Project Documents.
PILOT WORK:

DPR worked with the youth sports user groups to pilot the allocation guidelines.

  • DPR conducted a fall season pilot of its sports allocation in 2016 with a focus on youth sport users.  DPR met with the youth sport user groups individually before and after the pilot to discuss their seasonal needs.  On January 31, 2017, DPR met with all of the youth sport user groups to discuss pilot results.  These results can be found under project documents.
  • In Spring 2017, DPR conducted a spring pilot and briefed the user groups on the results of the pilot on August 16, 2017.  That briefing can be found under project documents – DPR Spring Pilot Summary – User Groups.
ON-GOING WORK
  • DPR will continue to draft Athletic Field Allocation Guidelines are now drafted (see sidebar for draft)
  • Draft Guidelines were shared with the Sports Commission and the youth sport organizations in October 2018