Westlake on Last Leg of a Long Road Trip : High school football: Warriors’ $1.7 million on-campus stadium on target to open next season.

As the Westlake High football team and hundreds of its fans travel to Newbury Park tonight for a matchup against Hart in the most-anticipated “home” game of the season, they can only hope their $1.7 million on-campus stadium will be ready to open next season as planned.

Construction crews have been working since Sept. 7 on a hill that overlooks the north side of the Westlake practice field. They will build concrete bleachers, similar to those at Ventura and Camarillo highs, that will seat about 4,000 in a lighted stadium. Since its first varsity season in 1978, Westlake has played its home games off campus, primarily at Thousand Oaks High.

Jim Bruno, president of Community Action for the Westlake Stadium (CAWS), said the construction should be completed by June.

Subsequent phases of the construction will include a concession stand, restrooms and bleachers on the visitors’ side of the field, Bruno said. Plans also include a locker room and weight room. Currently, the locker room is on the other side of the campus.

“I’d like to see everything done in the next three years,” Bruno said, “but it’s going to depend on the availability of funds.”

The first phase of construction, which includes concrete bleachers on the north side of the field and lights, will cost about $1.7 million--about $300,000 more than the original estimate, said Sarah Hart, Conejo Valley Unified School District assistant superintendent of business services.

The district will pay the additional $300,000 over the next two or three years, Hart said, by using a portion of its annual funding from the city of Thousand Oaks.

Of the initial $1.4 million, $1 million came from the city of Thousand Oaks in the form of redevelopment funds, Bruno said. The district donated an initial $250,000 and the rest--about $170,000--came from private donations to CAWS, donations by booster clubs and money from Westlake High student-body funds, Bruno said.

Westlake football Coach Jim Benkert said it will be a welcome change when his team is able to play at Westlake next year. Still, he has tried to downplay the lack of a stadium.

“There hasn’t been a home game here, so it’s not like we’re missing anything,” Benkert said. “These kids come in now and they know it’s always been this way. We’re tying to teach them it doesn’t matter where we play.”

Bruno said efforts to build a stadium have been in the works since the 1980s, but funding was always a stumbling block.

“Most people have agreed that the need was justified in the community,” he said. “We’ve been traveling without a stadium since the school opened. Nobody’s ever had a sense of identity or community pride.”