1.4 Acres of SYNLawn Anchor World’s Largest Children’s Museum Sports Experience

Indianapolis, IN — The Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience, a 7.5-acre, $38.5 million exhibit at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis opened Saturday with SYNLawn sustainable, plant-based products in a starring, 1.4-acre role.

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is the largest of its kind in the world and this indoor/outdoor exhibit, The Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience, is a massive effort to focus on health and fitness for families.

“We’ve been trying to get our arms around health and fitness with children and families for many years,” explained Dr. Jeffrey Patchen, Museum president and CEO. “We wanted to be able to create an experience both indoors and outdoors, but we wanted it to be fun and engaging for both children and their parents,” said Patchen The result, a 7.5-acre outdoor and 15,000 sq. ft. indoor experience that allows parents and grandparents to engage with kids, year-round, related to health and fitness, by learning healthy ways to engage in sports skills and drills in a non-competitive environment inspired by world-class sports legends with ties to Indiana.

“The selection of SYNLawn artificial grass for this project was critical because of the need to provide the most lifelike, all-weather playing environment that could also blend in with the natural landscape,” said Patchen. Another major requirement of the project was that the product be durable, have great drainage and be installed by the most skilled group of artificial turf experts. “We wanted to be able to maximize our use of outdoors even when it’s chilly and when it’s really warm and we looked at the incredible variety of turf options that SYNLawn provided. At the end of the day, it’s about the quality of the different turfs, and SYNLawn’s install expertise and the experience were an important part of our decision,” said Patchen.

SYNLawn is anchoring four of the outdoor sports experiences to provide the most durable, natural-looking play surface for up to 6,000 guests per day.

“This outdoor exhibit may have as many as 5,000-6,000 people a day, it really has to be durable, it has to hold up and SYNLawn’s drainage plan was really important for this urban setting,” said Patchen.

The following outdoor exhibits feature SYNLawn products:

Pete and Alice Dye Golf Experience

Thirty-six holes with more than 38,000 sq. ft. of undulations, seams, and colors unite at this intricately designed museum golf exhibit for beginners to advanced players. There are eighteen signature holes to honor famous holes designed by Pete and Alice Dye from around the world. These holes were then scaled down to be actual replicas complete with faux water features, sand traps, and boulders. The result is an unparalleled, three-dimensional playing course, which showcases eight varieties of SYNLawn plant-based synthetic grass.

Indianapolis Colt’s Football Experience

This experience allows children and adults to pass, kick field goals and engage with “tackling dummies” in the form of famous Colts players for an epic touchdown celebration.

Subway® Soccer Experience

This experience teaches passing, dribbling and shooting fundamentals and helps kids imagine themselves as future soccer stars.

Wiese Field Baseball Experience

In this experience, families learn about America’s pastime while learning important batting and catching skills.

“The detail of replicating these holes so perfectly really gave our Indianapolis distributor’s installation crew, SYNLawn Indiana, an opportunity to showcase their skill and talent,” said George Neagle, Executive Vice President, SYNLawn. “A truly durable play surface is determined not only by the product used but the quality of the whole system from the ground prep-work to the cutting and seaming of the turf. Only truly experienced craftsmen could pull off a job of this magnitude with such success.”

This new model of health and fitness is a permanent addition to The Children’s Museum complex, making the museum bigger and better than ever before. The Museum and the community at large are committed to expanding the definition of family learning. They are committed to health and exercise not only for children but for parents and grandparents to be a part of the entire experience. Healthy minds and healthy bodies make for a healthy future, and The Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience is on the cutting-edge of that commitment.

“We are excited to see our renewable, plant-based products contribute to such a globally recognized project,” said George Neagle. “We are even more impressed by our customer’s satisfaction and feedback on our expansive, sustainable product offering and installation.