Sports Equipment & Infrastructure Blog | Sport Systems - Building A Better Game

Retractable Bleachers for the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School in Uganda

Written by Ryan Wilby | Feb 14, 2019 10:22:01 AM


In the 40 years in which we have been in operation, our proudest accomplishment has been not only our rapid expansion in Canada and the US, but also into other foreign markets such as Kuwait, Barbados, and Europe among many others.

Once again, we were fortunate to have another international invitation to bring athletic equipment abroad, this time to the African nation of the Republic of Uganda. Located in east-central Africa in the Great Lakes region, the country is completely landlocked except for a portion of their border on Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria.

Near the end of 2016, our team was directly contacted by Richard Stanley from the 303 Development Group located in Staten Island, New York to discuss the possibility of a new multipurpose sports facility in Uganda. As a part of an expansion to the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School, the facility was in the process of planning a new indoor pavilion that would accommodate sports such as basketball, badminton, volleyball and many other events. The construction of such a facility would prove to be the first of its kind in the Republic of Uganda and one that had everyone very excited.

As the planning process progressed, our team was brought on board to design the seating structure that would be placed inside the new state-of-the-art facility. Given their versatile nature, key stakeholders in the organization ultimately decided that our telescopic bleacher seating systems would be the perfect fit and our team was quick to get to work in designing the perfect solution for the new facility.

After receiving the architectural drawings, our team designed the seating structure and returned for prompt approval. In addition to the custom structural design of the bleacher seating, the school selected a custom colour scheme for the new seating structure complete with the school’s initials AVRS branded into the seating as well.

During 2018, we were informed that the facility was ready for the bleachers to arrive on-site and be prepped for the installation process that would follow shortly thereafter. Working closely with the team at Ornate Ltd., our teams were able to successfully guide the on-site installation team to perform the job that would see the space transformed into a truly multi-use athletic facility. Today, the seating is in place and ready to accommodate up to 640 spectators inside this beautiful new facility – the first of its kind in Uganda and one we were very happy to have been a part of.