Dos Vientos Builder to Add More Ball Fields

By the start of the 1998 baseball season, Newbury Park teams could have a new five-diamond sports facility.

One of the companies behind the giant Dos Vientos project, a 2,300-home development on the west end of Thousand Oaks, has agreed to expand a planned sports complex within the development, increasing the number of baseball diamonds from three to five and including three soccer fields. As designed, the complex would also feature bleachers, a snack stand, restrooms and eventually a gym.

City Councilman Michael Markey had urged the company, Operating Engineers Trust, to expand the original park design. With between 600 and 700 Newbury Park children playing on organized teams, Markey said, the community needed more than three new fields.

Markey, who has three children on local baseball teams, said games are now played at three schools--Manzanita and Cypress elementaries, and Sequoia Intermediate. That creates a logistical nightmare for parents.

“You could have three or four of your kids at three different fields,” he said.

Markey’s comments matched what Operating Engineers and its design company, VTN West Inc., heard from other Newbury Park residents, said Eric Taylor, VTN West senior vice president.

“When we started getting community input on those three fields, the input was that the community really needed four or five fields,” he said.

The sports facility would cost more than $4 million to complete, Taylor said.

Markey said he will present the facility design to the Conejo Recreation and Park District board June 27. Thousand Oaks planning commissioners are also scheduled to review the project July 1.