Since opening two decades ago, Central Valley Hawks football teams have been forced to leave campus to play home games. But that will soon change with the advent of a $16.2 million stadium which broke ground on Monday.
“This day means a bunch for obvious reasons, but mostly for the people you see to my right and left are students who have been waiting anxiously for this,” said Central Valley High School Athletic Director Greg Magni, pointing to cheerleaders and football players who turned out from their summer vacation. “They deserve it. It is going to be an amazing project. I just can’t wait.”
Magni said the project is the “last piece of the puzzle that will complete the school.”
“School culture comes to mind when we do stuff like this, and I mentioned it, but our kids deserve this. They don’t have to go anymore and travel to home games. They have a home. And we can do a good job at this school of giving kids a home. We make it a safe place. We prioritize academics and we get them to the next level. And now it’s time to do that on the athletic field as well.”
Noting that four of five CUSD cabinet members were administrators at Central Valley High School early in their careers, Kristi Britton, assistant superintendent of Business Services for CUSD noted that “saying we are excited is an understatement.”
Phase I of the project consists of a:
• 1,800-seat home grandstand and press box made of steel;
• 1,000-seat visitor grandstand;
• Ticket/restroom/concessions building;
• Extended bus loading zone and sidewalk;
• Artificial turf field and all-weather track;
• Fencing and improvements to the parking lot and the entrance to the stadium.
“Our goal is to host home games there in the fall of 2026,” said Britton.
Second and third phases will include a home and visitor tool room, and a restroom/concession stand on the visitor side. Funding for those phases will be about $5 million.
Mayor Javier Lopez, also a football coach at the school, attended the ground-breaking, said he has “been waiting as well as everybody here very long time for this to happen.”
Councilwoman Cerina Otero has students at Central Valley High School and said she looks forward to “joining you all during the football games and seeing the cheerleaders. I actually was a cheerleader in high school as well, so I know it’s going to be a great time and thank you, everyone, for all the hard work that you’ve done on this project.”
William Brandle of Darden Architects explained that the present field will be dug up, re-graded and prepared for a synthetic field surface while the track is also going to be excavated and resurfaced.
Brandle said some of the fields will be out of commission while construction takes place.
“Yeah, like, this is varsity girls softball (field), said Ken Hines, CUSD’s Director of Maintenance, Facilities and Transportation. “They won’t be able to use it for the whole year.”
The district hopes that varsity baseball fields will be available for use next spring.
Brandle said other advantages of this project are providing handicapped accessible facilities, including restrooms and bleachers which will include ramps and a designated wheelchair seating area.
