- February 5, 2025
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There was once a time when Leisure Services Director Robert Carolin would get phone calls in the middle of the night alerting him that the field lights were accidentally left on after a game at the Ormond Beach Sports Complex.
He would then either have to physically drive out to the field himself or send someone to turn them off. Now, he can grab his cell phone from his nightstand and shut them off remotely, and he can do so from anywhere in the world as long as he has cell reception.
“Now, it’s really simple," Carolin said.
This feature is just one of the new upgraded lights in fields five through 10 at the sports complex, which have been in operation for the last three months. The lighting by Musco, a sports lighting company, cost the city $1,236,225, much of which was paid using the FEMA reimbursement Ormond Beach received from Hurricane Matthew. The original wooden light posts were loosened by the storm, causing the fields to close down until they were removed.
The city originally planned to simply replace the posts with the same high-intensity discharge lamp lighting but rerouted to LED because it was cleaner and is more uniform across the field, Carolin said. He added that the new LED lighting lasts longer and has a 25-year full-maintenance warranty system with Musco.
Aside from city staff, coaches and sports associations can now be assigned pass codes so they can turn the lighting on and off with their own phones. Carolin said the new improvements also include security lighting for the parking lots and almost zero glare away from the field.
“It’s like a curtain drop," Carolin said. "So I could stand, literally, on the other side of this pole in the middle of the night and if my security lights weren’t on, you couldn’t see me.”
Carolin said the lights also make the sports complex fields more marketable to outside teams and allow more flexibility for the leisure department regarding the times of day games can be held, especially during the fall and winter months.
“Due to the type of lighting it is, which is probably one of the best sports lighting that you could get with today’s technology — and it’s the most efficient — it’s gonna be a much safer play because you’re gonna be able to see if there are any undulations in the field," Carolin said.
