Sports Dome Could Come to Roxbury School Grounds

ROXBURY, NJ – It would cost about $5 million, but a proposed athletics “dome” for the Roxbury School District would likely pay for itself in under a decade thanks to rental revenues, according to a district official.

The dome idea was announced Monday by Roxbury Schools Business Administrator Joe Mondanaro during his budget presentation at the school board meeting. Later in the meeting, the board unanimously approved the new $83.4 million budget, a spending plan that will require a 1.754 percent increase in the school tax.

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Mondanaro said the proposed dome would be built on land between Lincoln-Roosevelt School and Franklin Elementary School in Succasunna. In recent years, the district erected a new $1.4 million outdoor instruction pavilion there as well as a new $1.2 million artificial turf sports field.

“We have a lot of plans for this field, and we have a lot of plans for the future of what the space between Lincoln-Roosevelt and Franklin looks like,” Mondanaro said. “We’ve been in contact with our architects about building a dome.”

'Will Pay for Itself'

He said the site was visited by representatives of Arizon Building Systems, the company that built the privately-owned, 45,000-square-foot "Centercourt" sports dome in Mount Olive (not the $1 million, 100,000-square-foot "Marauder Dome" built in 2017 by Air Structures American Technologies for the Mount Olive School District).

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Arizon “is just starting to work with some numbers” for Roxbury, Mondanaro said. He noted that he and other district administrators “kind of put the brakes” on the dome discussions when the district found out several months ago it is losing nearly $1.9 million in state aid this year.

“Do I think we can still do the project? Yes,” said the business administrator. “The project’s probably going to cost about $5 million. But please, I want everyone to understand something: I think this project will pay for itself probably in about seven years.”

According to its website, the Mount Olive School District charges up to $800 per hour to rent the Marauder Dome.

Mondanaro said he’s discussed with former and current Mount Olive business administrators the financial aspects of dome ownership. “They told me it’s well worth it,” Mondanaro said. He said he and Roxbury Schools Superintendent Frank Santora will continue studying the feasibility of one for Roxbury.

“This is a project Dr. Santora and I are going to figure out in the next couple of years,” Mondanaro said. “It’s definitely something I think the community wants, and it's something that will help us generate revenue in years to come.”

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