MOORPARK : Funding Sought for 6,000-Seat Stadium

At first, it was going to be just a place where children could play ball.

Now, Moorpark business leaders and school officials are dreaming of building a high school athletic stadium that would be the best and biggest in eastern Ventura County.

“This is very exciting for this community,” resident Patty Waters told the City Council in a presentation last week about the proposed Moorpark Athletic Community Complex at Moorpark High School.

Waters, a former president of the board of the Moorpark Unified School District, is one of the leaders of the Moorpark Athletic Community Complex Committee, a group trying to raise $3 million for the project.

As proposed, the athletic complex would feature a 6,000-seat outdoor stadium around a nine-lane, 400-meter track and a field that could be used for football, soccer and field hockey games. It would also have an Olympic-size pool, two softball fields and a field house with a weight room and facilities for wrestling and dance events.

School officials have been planning the 6,000-seat stadium, which would be larger than any in Thousand Oaks or Simi Valley, ever since the new high school was built several years ago. The high school teams have been using an older, much smaller facility at the old high school site. Santa Monica-based developer Urban West Communities donated $580,000 toward the project last fall, which has paid for most of the grading and sodding of the field. The large donation led Waters’ group and school officials to decide to add the swimming pool and other improvements.

Waters’ group held a luncheon for local business leaders Friday to ask them to donate money. The committee’s immediate goal is to raise $800,000 to add the stadium bleachers in time for football season.