by Anne Emerson| Wednesday, September 2nd 2020

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — We’re picking up on our tour of five new CCSD facilities. You might have seen this one along I-526 in North Charleston.

It’s a $22 million high school sports stadium that’s ready for its first football game in less than a month.

District 4 CCSD Stadium covers four schools, including North Charleston High, Stall High, Academic Magnet High and Military Magnet Academy. The schools will be able to seat 6,000 people in the stadium.

That’s the magic number to host South Carolina’s playoff games, says CCSD Athletic Director Bob Olsen.

In the fall, there will be football games Wednesday through Friday for the schools, juggling several factors when it comes down to who plays and when.

The first game is Military Magnet hosting Cross. That game is Sept. 25.

“We look at the schedule for each school and then we look at what the draws will be fan wise and obviously that plays into it. Also we look at schedules this year that all schools had the opportunity to play in this stadium,” says Olsen.

Extra COVID cleaning measures will be in place between every game.

“We will have people assigned to clean this on a regular basis and to sanitize. Just like we are doing extra measures in our school buildings, we’ll be doing extra measures at all of our stadiums,” says Olsen.

The stadium is built to handle more than football, too. That’s important for spring sports.

“The ability to convert from a football field to a lacrosse field to soccer field, pretty seamlessly considering that there are permanent stripes on the field,” says Matt Campbell, the stadium’s project manager for Cumming Construction.

And then there are the perks, from a hi-tech JumboTron, to separate team locker rooms, to synthetic turf.

“We don’t have to worry about holes, about cutting the grass, lining the field, it’s a first-class facility and what you are standing on now is what you would be typically standing on in a collegiate stadium,” says Olsen.