California community college Saddleback College has broken ground on its new US$55m sports facility in Mission Viejo, southern California, which is slated to open in the spring of next year, The Orange County Register has reported.
The new facility will boast a capacity of 8,000, a nine-lane running track, artificial turf fields, a concession stand, storage units for sports equipment, a press box and meeting rooms, a scoreboard and a platform providing views of all the fields.
The new facility will host football alongside Saddleback track and soccer teams, and it is expected to serve as a home venue for local high school teams and host community and entertainment events.
“We really foresee this as being the premier hub for entertainment and sports throughout South Orange County,” school president Gregory Anderson told the Register.
“Once you go south of UCI (University of California, Irvine), you’ve got to go down all the way to San Diego before you find something of this caliber.”
The original sports facility was built in 1976 and has a capacity of 3,800 but features such as wooden steps and the location of the bathrooms and visiting bleachers outside of the stadium have left it outdated by today’s standards.
March 16, 2018
