What can $1 buy these days? Alot for the MV Thunder

City approves $1 deal for storage of field
Friday, September 15, 2006
A new football field would cost about $175,000, a city official says.

By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city's board of control approved a $1 lease agreement to store the Mahoning Valley Thunder's football field in an industrial building the day the field arrived in Youngstown.

The lease, approved Thursday, runs through April 1, 2007, about the time that the AF2 [Arena Football 2] season starts. The lease is with Trumbull Industrial Manufacturing Inc. for the use of the second floor of an industrial building the company owns on Andrews Avenue. The field arrived Thursday.

Trumbull Industrial had the empty space and was kind enough to lease it for $1 to support the city and the team, said Kyle L. Miasek, the city's deputy finance director.

The Thunder will play its home games in the city-owned Chevrolet Centre. The city bought the field, about five years old, for $83,000 from Georgia Sports Enterprises LLC, the parent company of the former Macon Knights AF2 team, which folded this year, said Kyle L. Miasek, the city's deputy finance director.

A new AF2 field — which is 50 yards with two eight-yard end zones — would cost about $175,000, he said.

The field is in "very good shape," Miasek said. It was last used Aug. 26 during the ArenaCup championship game in Puerto Rico. The Spokane Shock defeated the Green Bay Blizzard 57-34 in the AF2 title game.

Michael Hold, the Thunder's head coach and the Knights' former head coach, speaks highly of the field, Miasek said.

The parts

The portable football field consists of about 17 rolls of synthetic turf, most of them 15 feet by 4.5 feet; 80 pads to be placed around the perimeter of the arena's hockey boards; two steel goal posts and supporting netting.

The city needed about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet to store the field, and the storage area on Andrews Avenue is significantly larger than that, Miasek said.