Orange Memorial Park Sports Field Wins Award of Excellence

The City of South San Francisco’s (City) Orange Memorial Park Sports Field Project (Sports Field) has been recognized with a 2023 Award of Excellence in the Excellence in Design, Park Planning category by California Park & Recreation Society (CPRS). According to the CPRS website, “This award recognizes excellence in design of completed park facilities intended for public use. The project may be either new construction or a rehabilitation project that demonstrates high standards of planning, design, community involvement, operation and maintenance, quality of aesthetics, usability, accessibility and versatility. Recognizes planning and development or significant rehabilitation of outdoor park and recreation spaces where the majority of the site does not contain buildings, structures or facilities and that result in higher levels of community use.”

The Sports Field is part of a multi-phase program aimed at revamping the park for the community, bringing it up-to-date and creating a multi-functional space. The highlight of the field is that it’s easily configurable allowing it to host different sporting events concurrently, featuring one adult/teen baseball diamond with dugouts, bullpens & batting cage; one adult/teen softball diamond with dugouts, bullpens & batting cage; two youth baseball diamonds with dugouts & bullpens; two adult soccer fields with portable goals; two junior soccer fields with portable goals; and four youth soccer fields with portable goals. Additionally, the project brings numerous new features to the field, including electronic scoreboards, synthetic turf, sports field lighting, enhanced spectator areas, drinking fountains, and a concession building.

Swinerton Management & Consulting (SMC) and the City has been in partnership, steadily improving the project site for years. Before to the installation of the Sports Field, the site had a need for a stormwater capture system. This regional stormwater capture project was the first of its kind in Northern California. It diverts dry-weather flow and the initial urban stormwater runoff from Colma Creek into an underground system within Orange Memorial Park. The system then treats the water to remove trash, debris, and sediment. A large cistern under the future sports fields stores water for further treatment and disinfection to meet irrigation and other non-potable demands, saving over 15 million gallons of potable water per year. When full, the cistern overflows into an infiltration gallery that recharges 55 million gallons of groundwater annually. This project was recognized with multiple awards: 2022 Outstanding Environmental Engineering Project by American Society of Civil Engineers, Region 9 (ASCE), 2022 Project of the Year and 2022 Environmental/Park; $5M-$25M Project by American Public Works Association, Silicon Valley Chapter (APWA), and 2022 Outstanding Stormwater Capture and Use Project by California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA).