How Harvard’s $1.8M soccer field became an ‘unnecessary fiasco’ and got a year behind schedule

On a Tuesday afternoon in late June, a group of Harvard High School boys soccer players competed in a summer camp scrimmage on a field behind Harvard Junior High School. Homes, trees, farmland and cloudy skies shared the game’s background. The white and blue Harvard water tower poked up in the distance.

As those on the field practiced, players on the sideline stood next to chain-link fences that disrupted the picture-perfect backdrop. The fences surrounded the program’s main soccer field, along with its lights, stands, press box and a nearby field.

The fences marked the start of a $1.8 million project focused on installing a turf field this summer. They also sparked excitement within the high school’s soccer programs.

“The kids can’t wait,” Harvard boys and girls soccer coach Victor Gonzalez said. “They’ve been asking for updates on it every so often. I try not to give them too much information, just because of what happened last year. I don’t want them to be disappointed if something were to happen.”

Gonzalez’s caution is valid. A year ago, Harvard School District 50 promised the installation of the turf soccer field last summer. It also guaranteed the installation of a turf football field.

Those promises went unfulfilled. The soccer field is only now in the final stages of being installed while the football project is expected to be completed next summer.

Despite the near completion of one project, questions linger about why the projects were delayed in the first place. A Northwest Herald investigation examined hundreds of emails to find the reason and discovered how miscommunication and a lack of expertise delayed a project that usually takes just months to complete.

The investigation also revealed how tension between the city of Harvard and the district grew as rumors swirled around the city.

An investment in the community

On May 22, 2023, the district took to X, formerly Twitter, to post a warning about the upcoming construction along with a photo.

“Attention CUSD 50 community members! Football stadium closure for construction,” according to the post. “Starting today, May 22, our football stadium will be closed due to construction and will be off-limits until further notice. #HarvardRising”

The post was meant to mark the start of one of the district’s biggest investments in its athletic facilities. Spurred by a one-time payment of $1.8 million in back taxes from the sale of the former Motorola building, district Superintendent Corey Tafoya and the school board decided that new turf football and soccer fields were the best way to use the funds.

They were sorely needed, parents and soccer players said.

They believe Harvard has limited fields for players to use for practice compared with neighboring towns that have turf fields. The fields the city does have, they said, are either bumpy or filled with holes made by chipmunks.

“We don’t have locations where our kids can train if they want to train on their own,” said Brenda Silva, a mother of four children who attend or attended district schools. “We can’t use the high school field because they’re afraid of it being ruined.”

After months of planning, the district board originally approved a plan to add turf fields and a track for $2,842,162 during its Oct. 19, 2022, meeting. The board revised the amount to $3,046,336 at its March 15, 2023, meeting.

The community met the projects with great excitement. Recent Harvard graduate Marco Herrera said construction plans were a common discussion point at family outings. Soccer players were even congratulated by members of the community.

For the first time, Herrera felt like his community believed in him.

“The community was really happy about it because they know our success with the soccer team,” Herrera said. “They pretty much just were telling us good things about it all the time.”

While Harvard celebrated, emails obtained by the Northwest Herald through the Freedom of Information Act detailed issues during the early stages of the project.

Emails revealed that the lead design team hired for the project, Loves Park-based ARC Design, submitted its initial plans for review to the city Feb. 14, 2023. The plan did not include a Harvard stormwater permit, a stormwater report and a geotechnical report.

Harvard city engineer Gary Rozwadowski, a senior project manager at Rosemont-based Christopher Burke Engineering, warned the city and ARC Design in an email response the next day that the plans needed to include water retention, a permit and reports. He said McHenry County would treat the field surface as impervious since none of the groundwater would be infiltrated into the ground and recharge the groundwater.

He also informed the city that it should be concerned that the proposed lighting for the soccer stadium could affect homes nearby.

“Just because school districts have some autonomous authority apart from municipalities does not mean they can build a development that does not satisfy the city,” Rozwadowski wrote.

ARC project manager Jeff Linkenheld responded to the notes in an email to Rozwadowski and a co-worker on Feb. 17, 2023: “Gary, is it possible to put us in touch with the person you would have reviewing any stormwater calculation?” Linkenheld wrote. “We see this work as [having] minor impact and want to be on the same page with your technical staff before we go down a wrong path and waste everyone’s time and money.”

‘Bleeding money and time chasing a ghost’

Tafoya stunned Harvard families on June 13, 2023, when he announced his decision to postpone the projects.

In a letter to Harvard residents, Tafoya explained that he made the decision because the district had not received a building permit yet despite starting the process in February. He claimed that the projects wouldn’t be finished in time for the fall and would cost an extra $1.5 million compared with the original projection.

Tafoya also couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be added costs that could jeopardize future projects.

“To say that I’m heartbroken for our kids would be a massive understatement,” Tafoya wrote. “I know how excited they were to play at a first-class facility making our schools and our community proud.”

Months before Tafoya sent that letter, emails revealed that ARC and the city engineer’s firm were in regular communication. The two parties worked to find a way to meet the county’s stormwater requirements. ARC submitted its plans and stormwater report without a geotechnical report and stormwater application on April 10, 2023, once it thought it found a solution.

Rozwadowski denied the first application 17 days later and provided specific requirements that the group needed to fulfill for both fields. ARC entered its second submission May 10, 2023, without a geotechnical report, which once again was denied nine days later because it still didn’t satisfy the stormwater requirements.

Frustration emerged in a May 23, 2023, email that ARC’s Linkenheld sent to a co-worker and Sean Huffstutler, the district’s director of buildings and grounds. After laying out the district’s two options, which would both increase the costs and change the plans, he wondered whether postponing the projects was the best solution.

“Maybe we need to cancel the project for this season and regroup to see if [it is] even feasible?” Linkenheld wrote. “We are currently bleeding money and time chasing a ghost.”

Those frustrations spilled over into another email, this time from Tafoya to Harvard Mayor Michael Kelly and Harvard City Administrator Lou Leone that included district Chief Financial Officer Melissa Geyman Sell and Huffstutler on May 25, 2023. In the email, Tafoya passed along ARC’s concerns of changing requirements, delayed responses and the added cost of the changes.

Tafoya echoed Linkenheld’s questions about whether it was worth starting the project.

“I know this isn’t your fault and your people, but Burke Engineering is single-handedly killing this project that our kids are beyond excited about,” Tafoya wrote to Kelly and Leone. “If you have any influence at all in helping with this endeavor, it would be appreciated. We want to comply entirely with our responsibilities, but this has become an unnecessary fiasco, and our contractors can’t figure out why this project is unlike any they’ve ever seen.”

Kelly set up a meeting May 30, 2023, for all parties to figure out a solution together. The next day, in an email to Kelly, Tafoya voiced his concerns about Rozwadowski, stating that he “didn’t get ‘we want to work with you to make this happen’ vibes from him. That’s what our people are experiencing from him, and now that I saw it, I get it.”

Kelly defended Rozwadowski and his firm in a response a few hours later, saying that Rozwadowski has the city’s full faith. He wrote that the firm “has provided significant feedback prior to and after both submissions,” and called it “unfortunate that both submissions were deficient” in addressing the county’s requirements.

Kelly also reached out to Rozwadowski to make sense of it all. He asked Rozwadowski if the planning process would’ve been complete by then with a firm that had more experience with this type of project.

“A firm with better understanding of the McHenry County ordinance would have completed the analysis and plans quicker, with less numerous iterations, thereby saving time,” Rozwadowski said.

Rozwadowski declined to comment for this story, and representatives for ARC couldn’t be reached for comment.

ARC submitted another application June 2, 2023, and the city granted a conditional permit six days later, noting some issues that needed to be addressed in order to get the full permit.

A day later, Tafoya emailed the city announcing his recommendation to postpone the project. Tafoya listed the reasons he included in his public letter but also wrote that he didn’t think there would be an end to added revisions.

He remarked “it’s hard to hit a moving target,” said “the obstacles here are too great,” and called it “a waste of everyone’s time to imagine we’ll get there.”

Kelly responded to Tafoya the same day, expressing his disappointment in Tafoya’s decision. He asked what changed since they met, now that they had received a conditional permit for the project.

“I am at a loss to understand how the target has moved when our engineers have provided the requirements in [three] different official reviews and additional communication outside of the official documents,” Kelly wrote.

Less than an hour later, Tafoya responded that the district couldn’t complete the project with an increase of $1.5 million and did not believe that any waivers would be approved.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” Tafoya wrote. “If this project was supported, we’d already be on week two of construction. Time to acknowledge that and move on.”

A year’s worth of lessons

More than a year after Tafoya sent his letter announcing the postponement of the projects, the soccer field turf installation is now underway. But unlike last year’s projects, there were no social media posts about it on either the district’s, high school’s or high school’s athletics’ X accounts.

Instead, the district started a page on its website where it provides summer construction updates, including the turf field installation.

The district is excited for how the project will elevate soccer in the city.

“I’m thrilled,” Tafoya said. “You know, our kids [were] truly heartbroken about this. They really were heartbroken. So for this to get off land, for it to be official, I mean, I really can’t wait to see our kids out there competing.”

Despite the excitement, the yearlong delay came with a variety of costs, including financial. The soccer project increased by $332,408 compared with what it was set to cost a year ago.

The district also paid ARC for its work last year leading up to the postponement. According to invoices obtained by the Northwest Herald, District 50 paid ARC Design $35,145.01 for work done between April 2022 and August 2023. It also paid $7,835 in permit application and engineer fees to the city during its initial first three attempts to start the project.

The district paid an additional $13,776.70 to ARC for the turf project from July 2023 to August 2024 and another $2,572.50 to the city.

Tafoya credited the increase in cost to inflation and the new elements of the design that ARC added in order to meet the county’s requirements. ARC added a new water retention space to the design, as well as new fencing surrounding the field and seating improvements.

The community was really happy about it because they know our success with the soccer team. They pretty much just were telling us good things about it all the time.”

—  Marco Herrera, Harvard boys soccer alumnus

The district continued working with ARC despite last year’s delay. Tafoya said most of the work already had been completed, and ARC just needed to reach the final 20%.

All parties met in the fall in order to get an understanding of how to make the project happen this year. Tafoya said that communication and limiting the project to one field made the project run smoother this time around.

“Everyone has been really working well to collaborate and cooperate, to get that done,” Tafoya said. “So it was much different than what we were experiencing in the spring, where there were questions and things we didn’t understand and obstacles. We really were able to do that pretty expediently this fall once we got everyone communicating and together.”

The delay also caused a strain in the relationship between the district and the city.

During the months since the postponement, rumors swirled about why the project wasn’t initially approved by the city. One rumor was because of negotiations between the city and the district over the school resource officer’s contract. The other rumor surrounded the district’s refusal to waive fees for the city to use the turf fields for camps and other events.

Kelly denied both rumors and said those negotiations had nothing to do with the district’s permit application.

Kelly felt it was unfair for the city to be viewed as the villain since the district’s project failed to meet county requirements. He also was disappointed by Tafoya’s public letter because he felt it didn’t tell the full story.

“The school district is free to say whatever they like,” Kelly said. “If they wanted to place the blame on the city, it certainly has soured some of our relations. But I think the city is more than willing to look past all this and move forward to be collaborative in the future.”

Both Tafoya and Kelly admitted there was plenty to learn from this experience. Each emphasized the importance of communication and said they’ll take those lessons with them when they collaborate on the football field project next summer.

“I think the biggest way to kind of avoid these kinds of situations in the future is simply having proper communication between your two organizations,” Kelly said. “Making sure that both organizations are aligned with what the other needs are.”

‘A huge benefit’

A summer later, Harvard coach Victor Gonzalez’s caution still feels valid.

When the Harvard boys soccer team started its season on the road at Grayslake North on Aug. 28, construction still was underway on their home field. As of Sept. 9, the turf had not yet been placed as workers continued to do groundwork.

Tafoya hoped the project would be completed by Harvard’s home opener Sept. 9, but the debut was pushed back to mid-September with no clear debut date. The school plans on hosting a grand-opening ceremony at some point this season.

Meanwhile, Gonazlez is busy trying to build off a historic playoff run last season. The Hornets won their third straight Kishwaukee River Conference title and first IHSA regional title since 2018.

Although his focus is on the team, Gonzalez acknowledged that he’s looking forward to the field’s eventual opening. His players and the Harvard community are excited for a new era for soccer in Harvard to finally start.

“I think it’s gonna be a huge benefit for Harvard as a whole,” Gonzalez said. “I know we always preach in the program that we’re a family and we’ll stay a family forever. And so a lot of alumni that are still living in the Harvard area are, you know, even super excited to come out and see ... and watch games on the new field and all that stuff. So I think it’s going to be beneficial to everybody.”