The national numbers come first: installed artificial turf runs about $5 to $20 per square foot, most residential lawns land in the $8 to $14 range, and a typical 500-square-foot yard prices out around $4,000 to $9,000. Those are published national ranges, not a quote, but they let you sanity-check anything you are handed, ours included.
What moves a New Deal number inside those ranges is the yard itself. Removing an existing lawn costs more than starting from bare ground. A yard with tight gate access takes more hand work than one a machine can reach. Turf grade matters too, a pet run and a showpiece front lawn do not need the same fiber. Those are the details that decide where a New Deal yard lands inside the range, and quotes are free either way. In a semi-arid climate, the other half of the math is what you stop paying for: a turf yard never takes another drop of irrigation.
Two line items deserve a closer look because they decide most quotes. Demolition first: an established lawn means sod, roots, and a few inches of soil cut out and hauled off, while a bare yard skips nearly all of it. Base second: three to four inches of crushed rock, compacted in lifts until it drains freely and holds a grade, is the floor under every sound number, and a bid that saves money by thinning the base is borrowing against the yard's future.
History gives New Deal a fitting frame for the decision. This is a town that voted in 1970 to incorporate rather than be annexed, choosing to run its own affairs, and a turf yard is the same instinct applied to a lawn: one decision, made once, that ends a recurring obligation. The sprinkler schedule, the seed bags, and the summer water spike all retire on install day, and what remains is a surface that asks for a brooming a few times a year.