Should You Turf the In-Between Areas of an Indoor Sports Facility?

Published March 5, 2025

Many facilities have multiple areas due to the layout of the building or because the business needs separate areas for separate activities.

When shopping and pricing artificial turf, the question becomes whether to turf wall-to-wall or only within the netted areas.

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of turfing wall-to-wall or only the sections and alternatives.

Wall to Wall

Advantages:

• Simpler Installation

Most indoor areas are either rectangular or multiple rectangles.  Turfing a perfect rectangle is often much easier than turfing multiple areas differing in shapes and sizes.  In this example,  you would need 11 rolls, 15’ x 115’ to cover a 165′ x 115′ area.(a couple may be cut shorter for the office) It’s easy to calculate & count the rolls, often easier to source rolls ensuring the same dye lot, and easy to install with 10, 115’ ft seams. There’s very little math and fewer variables for the installer.

• Long Term Flexibility for the Space

Turfing the entire area allows more flexibility in the space if you ever need it.   For-profit businesses who need additional revenue streams, may need to accommodate other sports or other events down the road.   If lacrosse takes over your town, it may make sense to open the nets up and have one large turf area.   This can also accommodate bouncy houses, yoga classes, agility training etc..

• Easier Turf End of Life

If the facility has to close, or move to a new location,   6, 15 x 100 rolls are  easier to fit into a new area that may have slightly different measurements.  Or if you are reselling the turf, it’s easier to sell one large rectangle than multiple odd length rolls.

Disadvantages:  

• More Expensive

Turf Wall-To-Wall typically means purchasing more square feet of turf.  Obviously you are covering more area.  In the facility example here, the square foot difference of turfed area vs non-turfed is area is 3,670 sq ft.  See math below.   If you are using a 5mm Padded Turf in your facility, this equates to roughly $10,000 is cost difference.   

3,670 sq ft * $2.89 sq ft = $10,606.30.

How to Calculate Square Feet of Access and Hallway Areas:

• Netting

Traditional Cage and Divider Nets simply loose-lay on the turf, while more sophisticated netting installations actually attach the net to the floor.   This is more labor and materials but aesthetically, has a cleaner, “boxier” appearance and the nets are pulled tighter.   The challenge in securing the net to the floor in a wall-to-wall turf installation is that the bottom cable will be secured to the floor by making holes in the turf.   This causes problems when turf expands over time, which can cause odd wrinkling and.  It’s much more difficult to fix, repair or replace turf when the net is secured through the turf, without undoing and redoing the netting.

• Bigger & Heavier Rolls

If you have multiple areas where the rolls are only 50’ long, the rolls will only weigh half as much as 100’ rolls.   Unloading turf rolls from trucks, getting them through doors and placed properly, is not always easy, especially in tight spaces.  15 x 100 foot rolls of padded turf can weigh 1,500 lbs.

What are the alternatives for the in-between areas?

1. Most warehouse floors are gray concrete and you can leave it as is.   Although most warehouse floors are not visually appealing.
2. Some folks opt to put down rubber flooring if it will be used as weight-room or other speed, agility or exercise activity.  White you can purchase from ATXTurf here.
3. Painting the Floor.  We prefer painting the hallways for 3 reasons:

• Looks Sharp.  The Contrast of the Clay Paint vs Green Turf emulates a baseball field and really pops when people walk into the facility.
• Less Expensive – A lot cheaper than any other flooring option. 1 gallon of paint covers about 300 sq ft for one coat.  
• Easier to Clean – You can mop it.   Energy Drinks, Gatorades, Food and other health / sanitary issues are much easier to clean by simply mopping a paint floor, as opposed to vaccuming carpet or scrubbing rubber flooring.

1 Gallon of paint can cover about 300 sq ft, so a 5 gallon bucket will cover about 1,500 sq ft for one coat.   So in the example facility here, you would need 2, 5 gallon buckets of paint, which costs roughly $200 each.   You can find commercial warehouse floor paint or Garage and Outdoor paint at your local Home Depot or Sherwin Williams.

We hope this helps when planning your facility.

If you have questions for free to reach out to an ATXTurf team member through the chat support on the website or gives us a call.