OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY) – Football season is among us, and here in Acadiana we look forward to the Friday night lights.

But in Opelousas, the center of the local football world is in need of a few upgrades.

Donald Gardner Stadium is the hub for high school football in Opelousas.

It serves as the home field Opelousas Senior High, Opelousas Catholic and Berchman’s Academy.

“It’s a heavily used field and it’s very important and essential to the community. It’s time for a redesign,” said city of Opelousas CAO Rod Sias.

According to Sias, the city is in the process of stabilizing the current facilities. 

It started this summer with the installation of a new scoreboard.

Next will be to patch up leaks beneath the home side of the stadium, and the list goes on.

“If it’s not draining right, but we’re going to correct that. We’re going to upgrade the fields and take care of it because it still heavily used,” says Sias.

He said added that new turf is in the field’s future.

Another issue is lighting.

In the late 50s, the field was used for football and baseball.

For the past 30 years, it’s been used to just toss around the pigskin.

“Some of the lights are turned off for baseball, some of them are facing the field,” Sias said. “The issue is the system. It’s so old that you can’t really find anyone that’s going to be to maintain it.”

The goal is to install a more football-focused, energy efficient lighting system.

Right now, the city is able to fund the design stage, but with city budget delays slowing down the process, how will the upgrades be paid for?

“Through grant writing, the savings that we have, budgeting in our city budget and we have a couple public and private partnership initiatives that are going to assist in the redevelopment and redesign of Donald Gardner Stadium”, Sias said.

The city also plans to upgrade stadium dressing rooms and improving air conditioning making them more football friendly.