Roxbury Latin School, in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood, undertook a $30 million upgrade to its athletic facilities on its 100-acre campus. The projects goal is to expand and improve existing facilities. This included new tennis courts, baseball diamond, and football field, as well as a new indoor sports complex with a new access drive. Field upgrades and new landscaping were done to help buffer the facilities from the surrounding neighborhood. The project also presented the opportunity to substantially improve the quality of stormwater and reduce the rate and possibly the volume of stormwater from the project site.

The terrain of the property presented some elevation challenges that were easily solved with the installation of two different types of retaining walls. The construction of new tennis courts required a level playing field in the rocky uneven landscape and were constructed with Pisa XL/Concord XL Wall shoring up the perimeter. The Chauncey Baseball Diamond was realigned for better solar exposure, the new backstop and team areas were carved into the hill using SienaStone engineered retaining wall. An access road was created to get to the new indoor athletic facility and again the grade drop-off to the baseball diamond presented a challenge that was solved with the engineered use of Pisa XL/Concord XL Wall to support the load of the new two-lane road access. In most of the new athletic fields, artificial free-draining turf was installed on an undrain system that allows the field to quickly drain between storm events and increase the life of the playing fields.

Since its founding in 1645, Roxbury Latin has developed an exceptional reputation for its commitment to academic excellence. The expansion project provides students with facilities commensurate with the quality of the rest of their student experience and created the necessary infrastructure to nurture generations of scholar-athletes.