Camelback Ranch Spring Training Facility is a 151-acre joint-venture project between the City of Glendale, Arizona, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball. This facility sparked controversy and significance in baseball history by moving the LA Dodgers spring training activities from the Grapefruit League in Florida to the Cactus League in Arizona.

Verdantas (formerly Aqua Engineering) provided complete irrigation system design and engineering services for 60 acres of landscaped area outside of the facility’s playing surface fields. The facility features twelve practice fields (six for each team) and one spring training exhibition stadium. As requested by the White Sox’s sports turf manager, our team coordinated with specialized consultants to provide the required valves, control systems, and lateral pipe service connections for the practice field irrigation systems.

The sports fields and landscaped areas of the site are irrigated with a reclaimed water source. Verdantas utilized in-house plan and profile engineering techniques to design the low-pressure, gravity-fed service line from the reclaimed water source point-of-connection to the lake. The lake also serves an aesthetic purpose and includes recirculating water feature mechanical systems we designed. We also provided design/engineering services for aeration system, liner/edge treatment of the lake, and irrigation pumping system with wet well, intake piping, and filtration. Construction observation services were provided throughout the construction and installation process. 

Our team also assisted the client with the development of their long-range asset management plan by providing a comprehensive capital improvement cost analysis spreadsheet for major equipment related to the irrigation system and lake components.

This project won an ASIC Excellence in Irrigation Honor Award in Commercial and Public Works (2010).