New Turf Takes Hold At All-High

Buffalo, NY – Buffalo student athletes playing at All-High Stadium this season will certainly notice a huge difference when they begin the season, but even more so when they’re playing into the late fall, early winter season. Cheektowaga-based A-Turf installed a new $420,000 all-weather playing surface to replace the natural grass field, part of a $6 million renovation at the Buffalo City Schools stadium. Jim Dobmeier, founder and president of A-Turf and its sister company Surface America, says the polyethylene fiber grass will give the students both softness and durability, plus no muddy mess. “The awesome thing about this surface is as you get into the second half of the fall sports season – football, soccer – the fields generally start to deteriorate from lots of use, with mud and bad footing,” he said. “Here, you have a synthetic field that plays as well in November as it does in August.” Dobmeier started Surface America in 1993 as a sales and marketing company related to manufacturer Dodge Rugupol Inc. in Lancaster, PA, providing playgrounds, gymnasium and fitness center flooring. The company expanded in 2002 with A-Turf, specializing in athletic fields. With 13 employees at the Aero Drive site and another four at a satellite office in Lancaster, PA, the two companies had combined revenues of $25 million last year, a number Dobmeier expects to see grow to between $30 million and $35 million this year. Plans call for hiring another two to three people before year’s end. The project with the Buffalo City Schools for All-High Stadium is typical of the type of jobs the company has completed around the country, especially in the New England and Mid Atlantic regions. Other projects include Churchill Downs, which features rubber pavers engineered to withstand horses; flooring in high-traffic areas at Duke University; and fitness flooring at the University at Buffalo.