Centennial Park Picked as Location of New Stadium

Centennial Regional Park in Santa Ana has been chosen as the site of an $11-million stadium for local high school and college teams to replace Santa Ana Stadium, officials announced Wednesday.

The stadium would accommodate football, soccer and track and field teams that would otherwise be left without a playing field if the proposed Westdome is built downtown.

Santa Ana Stadium, which is situated at Civic Center Drive and Flower Street, would be razed to make way for the $35-million Westdome, a proposed arena that would house a professional basketball team, as well as indoor soccer, concerts and other special events. The City Council is expected to make a final decision March 3 on Westdome.

Redevelopment Bonds

Santa Ana will pay for the “new” Santa Ana Stadium with redevelopment bonds, which were approved Tuesday night, City Manager Robert C. Bobb said. “This will be a new, first-rate sports complex,” he said. “The key is that we own this land. We will not have to acquire any land to build this stadium.”

Demolition of the existing stadium and construction at Centennial Park, located southwest of Fairview Street and Edinger Avenue, would begin as soon as the council approves Westdome, Bobb said. Construction would take about a year, he said.

The new stadium would seat more than 13,000 people in a bowl formed by earthen berms on 32 acres at the southwest corner of the park.

Temporary Facility

During construction, school teams could use a temporary 5,000-seat facility, which could be built for about $300,000 either on a field at Rancho Santiago College or on a field in Centennial Regional Park. Schools that now use the existing stadium include two colleges, Rancho Santiago and Cal State Fullerton, and four high schools: Mater Dei, Santa Ana, Saddleback and Santa Ana Valley. A fourth city high school, which will open in 1988 at Grand and McFadden avenues, also would use the site, and area playoff games would be held there.

Critics of the Centennial Regional Park site, which was chosen over sites at Rancho Santiago College and Santa Ana High School, point to its proximity to the Santa Ana River, which they say makes for soft and water-saturated earth. But a firm hired to test the soil, Irvine Soils Engineering Inc., reported that the conditions can be alleviated.

The firm’s chief engineer, Ken Bagahi, said the problems “are serious but they can be dealt with.” He said possible solutions include sand drains, which allow water to escape easily during construction, and “surcharging” the site, or placing more weight than the stadium itself on the site before construction to speed up the soil’s settling.

Representatives of the schools that would use the stadium expressed mixed feelings; most said they would like to keep the old stadium but that the new plans sound enticing.

“We hate to lose the bowl. It’s such a nice stadium,” said Mater Dei athletic director Bob Gonzales. “We’ve been spoiled over the years. It’s been a great place to play, and all of a sudden you’re up in the air and wondering where you’re going to play next year.”

‘Really Nice’

However, he added: “I haven’t seen plans for the new place, but from what I understand, it will be a really nice facility. I guess we can put up with a little discomfort for a while if we have that to look forward to.”

Saddleback athletic director Jerry Witte echoed Gonzales in praising the existing stadium. “The stadium is in the best shape now that it’s ever been. They improved the lighting, re-did the field, new paint; it’s a stadium the whole county can be proud of,” he said.

Said Larry Arason, Santa Ana Unified School District athletic director: “What pleased me most about the new proposal is they included a nine-lane, 400-meter running track and seating capacity of 13,000. That allows us to host CIF and state high school track meets, which would bring a lot of revenue. . . . Naturally, none of us wanted to see the bowl torn down because it’s one of the finest facilities in the nation for high school football. It looks inevitable that something is going to happen. I’m just glad they haven’t forgotten about our needs.”

Opposition Outlined

School Board President Joan Wilkinson, who has supported Save Our Stadium, a group of citizens opposed to the demolition plans, said she doesn’t agree with the city’s latest estimates of $6.8 million to upgrade the existing stadium. Arguing that the stadium has excellent lighting and a new field, she said: “When you have something that is of such high quality, why tear it down? And the cost of upgrading it would still be far less than the cost of building the new stadium.”

Carmen Padilla, chairperson of Friends and Neighbors of Centennial Park, said the city has never made good on plans to make Centennial into a full-fledged park. She said traffic and noise generated by the stadium would be a problem.

Bobb said flyers will be distributed to residents within 500 feet of the park announcing a meeting to be held in the area next week.

If the Westdome project falls through, Bobb said, he still will recommend that the new stadium be pursued. Even if $6.8 million was spent to upgrade the old stadium, it never would be as good as the Centennial Regional Park project, he said.