Coast-to-Coast keeps rolling out the turf across the west

Call it a carpet installation business on steroids if you will.

And perish the thought that Coast-to-Coast Turf is who you call to have a crew come out and roll out new bluegrass in the yard.

The business located along Interstate 90 at Thomas Mallen Road, with large rolls of turf sitting in a field, does both installations of brand new artificial turf, some that is used, and also sells chunks of recycled fields.

Owner Steve Webb, a lifelong resident of Spokane, basically bumped into the business, he said.

"I was actually in the stock brokerage business," Webb said.

While the SprinTurf field was being installed in 2002 at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Webb became acquainted with the crew and kept in touch. One day he got a call asking if he was interested in the tear-off of a field.

Webb, who played baseball at Washington State University and had developed a network of coaches in the Northwest, got in touch with them offering deals on sections of turf for batting cages, in the batter's circle and elsewhere.

With the experience he has gotten doing small jobs, Webb was told he should start a business installing turf.

He teamed with the people who installed the G-Prep field and the business has been a huge success keeping Webb's two crews more than busy with notable recent installations of football turf at Seattle Memorial Stadium and a baseball field at the University of Portland.

Early in 2016 they will be in Eugene for a softball field project at the University of Oregon.

Artificial turf will celebrate its 50th birthday next year with the first installation at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, coining the term AstroTurf. Now there are many turf companies across the nation, many located in the traditional center of household carpet products in Georgia.

"We were so busy last year we turned down about six fields," Webb said.

Last year Webb's crews tore off two different fields, one in Bremerton and at Seattle Memorial Stadium. The tear-out product is what sits in the yard along I-90. "We sell that throughout the year," he said.

Webb said that as soon as he receives permits from Spokane County - something he expected in August - the company will build a 50-foot by 200-foot warehouse to house both new and used turf. Webb plans to also have a baseball diamond, which will act as a sales tool.

Used turf sells for about $1 per square foot versus $4-5 for new, Webb said. It's used in all kinds of applications both big and small. Some of it goes into a warehouse space where it becomes an indoor soccer center or a baseball training facility that use 5,000 – 10,000 square feet, or used by falconers, a surprisingly popular use in this area, Webb said. Another unique installation occurred on the Kalispel Indian Reservation for a Pow Wow stadium.

When Coast-to-Coast receives an installation contract they also do the tear off. "We'll do about 14 fields this year," Webb said, with each taking three weeks to a month. "We do the turf only, we come in and the base is all done," he added, referencing the lengthy ground preparation done by other contractors.

The company installs across the West in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

"Baseball fields take longer because of more square footage, 130,000 square feet compared to 80,000," Webb said. In football each number, hash-mark, logo - any element of a different color - is cut out by hand and then hand-glued back.

Turf has a useful initial life of between 9-12 years, Webb said. As with almost anything, that life is dictated by "how well you maintain it."

While most turf can be recycled for further use for years, some of it is turned over to a business in Orting, Wash. near Tacoma where it is ground up and used in a variety of other uses.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].