After the Board of Trustees approved the athletic department’s proposal to install an artificial playing surface at O’Brien Stadium, director of athletics Rich McDuffie and the purchasing department, reviewed proposals from companies to install the new surface.

McDuffie said Eastern received proposals from five different companies, but would not release the names of the companies.

The athletic department is not the only department in the university that will review the proposals — the purchasing and facilities department will also have to look at the submitted plans to ensure they are financially and physically feasible.

“There is a lot of technical stuff that I don’t understand, like drainage that others need to look at,” McDuffie said.

McDuffie also said Eastern will ask an architect to review the plans.

“We’ll all get a chance to review it to make sure it meets the specs,” McDuffie said. “But (the proposals) look good.”

McDuffie would not disclose how much the proposals would cost the athletic department, which raise about $600,000 in private gifts for the project, but he did say the cost was within the department’s original estimate for the cost of the project of $750,000.

“The initial (cost) looks good, but we can’t analyze it until everything is in there,” McDuffie said.

None of the proposals included a logo for the midfield area, but McDuffie said the athletic department might inquire about the possibilities of including one.

“That doesn’t mean we might not have it,” McDuffie said about a midfield logo not being included in any of the proposals. “If we should have one, we haven’t decided yet.”

The athletic department controls when the project will begin construction and has a set a target date of June 1.

“We gave a time line for when construction will begin,” McDuffie said.