BURBANK : Panel Urges Razing 47-Year-Old Stadium

The 47-year-old Olive Memorial Stadium, once the site of the St. Louis Browns’ spring training and professional football tryouts, should be torn down and replaced with a modern facility, a special study committee has recommended to the city.

“It’s a beautiful stadium,” said John Dominguez, a member of the Burbank Parks and Recreation board, who once played baseball there for John Burroughs High School. “It’s reminiscent of yesteryear.”

The stadium has been closed in recent years for safety reasons. Although city officials have long considered tearing it down, there has been some public opposition, especially from those who remember the stadium’s heyday when baseball legends like Satchel Paige, Bobby Thompson and others played there.

Park board member Terre Hirsch began a campaign to save the building, which led to the formation of the special committee made up of representatives of various community groups.

“This has been a very sensitive issue,” Hirsch said Wednesday night after committee members overwhelming voted in favor of tearing down the stadium to build a new one. The recommendation goes to the parks and recreation board, which will vote March 10 on whether to send the proposal to the City Council. “But this is the best way to deal with this issue.”

“I’m saying we should bite the bullet now and build a new facility,” said Gary Sutliff, a member of the Burbank Historical Society and a committee member.

Most of the committee members acknowledged the sentiment attached to the building, but voted for tearing down the structure in favor of a more modern facility for the city’s youth.

Theodore Garcia, president of the Burbank Historical Society, said the society’s board had voted not to try to protect the building because it did not have enough historic merit.

“Just because it is old does not mean it is historically significant,” Garcia said. “When we reviewed the building, we did not find anything architecturally significant.”

Hirsch said he would not predict yet what the parks and recreation board will do with the recommendation.