State-of-the-art sports complex will include energy saving
lights, recycled water pump station
Gilroy – A field of dreams is taking shape in Gilroy.
Soon, young ball players awaiting a pitch will be able to scan a green horizon and dig their cleats into the same deep-red clay found at the home of the San Francisco Giants.
A relief pitcher will be able to warm up in a bullpen while a proud mom can buy a hot dog before her son comes up to bat.
But what will be the most impressive thing about the first piece of the 80-acre sports park rising across from the Hilton off Monterey Road?
“To me it’s the colors. The green grass, the red infields, the white lines,” said Steve Kelly, the park’s construction manager and one of the first to lay eyes on the fields as they take shape. “It just hits you.”
The first phase of the project, which will wrap up in the fall, includes three Little League baseball fields. Two of them have standard 60-foot base paths while a third has 90-foot base paths. All three will include backstops, bleachers and scoring booths, as well as four-foot-high outfield fences that can be removed to make way for a soccer field.
Towering stadium lights have already been installed, as have the poles for a batting cage and pitcher’s bullpen at the north end of the park.
Workers expect to start installing 270,000 square feet of grass in mid-July. All three fields have already been laid with Pac Bell clay, the same used at the home of the San Francisco Giants (now known as AT&T Park).
“This is a very sophisticated baseball facility,” Kelly said. “It’s the same level as a professional park.”
The fields aren’t the only state-of-the-art feature of the sports complex, which also includes energy-saving lights and a pump station that can soak fields with recycled water.
The first phase of the $10.7-million project began in March 2005. While the most visible signs of progress have occurred in recent months, some of the most time-consuming but important work began early last year. Construction crews spent much of the last 18 months laying electrical lines, sewers and water mains that will one day service all 80 acres of the park.
The facility will eventually spread west into bell pepper fields bordering Uvas Creek. The next phases will include as many as eight softball fields and possibly a BMX dirt bike facility, as well as tie-ins with the city’s trail and bike system. The current phase will connect the Uvas Creek levee trail to the northwest corner of the park, and plans call for the extension of that trail south from the sports complex to Gavilan College.
The remainder of the sports park project, estimated to cost more than $23 million for all phases, will take place over a number of years as funds become available.
The Little League fields now under construction have been envisioned for more than 15 years. Dennis Castro Jr. recalls his father planning the fields. Castro Jr. never had a chance to play on his father’s vision, though he did go on to play minor league baseball and, more recently, coached a local girls softball team to the world series in Portland, Ore. He looked forward to the chance for his own son to play on the fields next spring.
“Growing up and playing Little League since I was 5 years old, one of my most memorable times was going to Salinas and playing Crazy Horse Park, where they had fences and scoreboards,” he said. “Or going to San Jose where they had home run fences, scoreboards, all that good stuff. It makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something. … The pride factor is going to be just huge.”
Construction of the Little League fields is expected to finish by mid-September. The city expects to wrap up work next week on the park’s entrance road and the median along Monterey Road.
