Orange County School Board Member Pam Gould shared some good news with residents in attendance at a Horizon West Town Hall meeting Wednesday, March 22. The Windermere High School Wolverines likely will have their own stadium on the WHS campus pending approval from the Orange County Board of County Commissioners. That approval is imminent, Gould said. Students, athletes, parents and school supporters have been fighting for this move since the school opened in 2017. The school’s football team has been playing on the field more than a mile away at Deputy Scott Pine Community Park. “That just wasn’t working for us, as a community and as a school,” Gould said. “With any luck, we will be able to have some games on campus, if all the stars align, in the next six months,” she said. The staffs at both the School Board and BCC have been working to find a solution to this ongoing off-campus stadium issue, which has included a lack of parking, insufficient seating in the stadium and safety concerns during bad weather. If the county’s Board of Zoning Adjustment recommends approval and the BCC approves the campus stadium, Gould said, the following timeline likely will be followed: Bleacher foundations would be poured Sept. 1; bleachers would be relocated and sidewalks and fencing would be installed Oct. 15; stadium lighting would be added Nov. 15; and concession and restrooms would be constructed in August 2024. “Concession will come later,” Gould said. “Food trucks are a wonderful thing.”
