APS stadium on track for fall opening

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The Super Bowl marks the end of the NFL season, but football fever is just heating up for high school sports fans.

The new APS West Side stadium is on track for cleats to hit the field next fall.

And KRQE News 13 got a behind-the-scenes look at progress on the site near 98th Street NW and Interstate 40.

“There will be nothing like this in the state of New Mexico and really in the region,” said Kenny Barreras, director of athletics for Albuquerque Public Schools.

The project, opposed by some of its neighbors , is on track to be completed by June, nearly two years after its early target date .

When it’s ready, it will get used a lot. The football stadium is only the third one for the entire district.

There will be 80 games played on the new field between August and November.

“We haven't built a new stadium or opened a new facility of this sort since 1963,” Barreras said. “There are a lot of us standing around who weren't alive in 1963.”

There are 100 construction workers, contractors and engineers on any given day working to get the stadium and nearby track-and-field site completed.

APS Chief Operating Officer Brad Winter said the project is five years in the making.  And it wouldn’t have happened without the $38 million in voter-approved bond money.

“I think it's a huge benefit not only for us but for the community, too,” Winter said.

The stadium will have concession stands on each corner, a press box, a pathway that goes around the outside of the stadium and locker rooms that exit right out onto the field.

And even though it’s a dirt field now, it will eventually have wall-to-wall turf.

APS says they’re in the planning stages for a huge kick-off weekend at the end of August.