WHS Community Stadium Project
Woodland High School Community Stadium Foundation (WHS CSF)
Founded on February 13, 2018 by parents, coaches, teachers, former staff, and community members interested in helping raise money and advance the project design for WHS’ Community Stadium football/soccer/track complex. The school district has committed the money that is necessary to get the stadium to reopen and make the facilities equal to Pioneer, but has no funding to renovate the field, track, or adjacent buildings. The WHS CSF has taken on this need within our community and will meet monthly on the second Tuesday from 6-7pm at Steve's Pizza on Main Street.
Our school has a proud legacy of the community coming together to build this stadium complex—this is why the complex is called Community Stadium! A $7.6 million bond passed in 1968 provided money to build Woodland High School, and to make some repairs to Lee Middle School and Dingle Elementary. There was no money allotted for any athletic facilities. So a few community members got together, formed an LLC, and using funds from the school district, organized the construction of our current stadium complex. With contractors augmented by volunteer labor, they literally built the stadium, and the final product cost $275,000 but was valued at more than $400,000! In 1973, Community Stadium hosted the California Interscholastic Federation State Track and Field Championships, with more than 8,000 people in attendance. It was considered a huge success, with our stadium being one of the few that could host a monster event like that. Due to current labor practices we cannot repeat that same building process, but we’ll be looking for ways to involve the community as much as possible. Local contractors should expect to bid to the General Contractor once this first phase is awarded.
The average lifespan of these stadiums is 40-50 years and we got 43 years of use from our stadium, before it was closed in 2014 because of “soft spots” underneath the bleachers. The school board immediately voted to set aside $1.5 million dollars in 2014, and set aside another $1 million the following year. A few Board members formed a committee made up of architects, coaches, teachers, and community members, which worked for months to create a phased master plan, since the funding is not yet available to complete the entire stadium. The committee started by determining the cost to build a complex shared with Pioneer in a new location, and then considered the cost to retrofit the existing berms and bleachers, but discarded both of those options once it was found that a new shared stadium would take 10+ years to build and the project would cost 20% more to keep the old bleachers. The master plan they created prioritizes a 70-yard football/soccer field—our existing football field is too narrow to accommodate soccer—and the resulting wider track shape means the bleachers will sit further back than they do currently. Recently the board approved a final $1 million, with an additional $366,000 coming from Prop 39 for energy efficient lighting, for a grand total of $3.87 million—enough to allow the first phase of the project to move forward and start construction!
Now that we have a master plan, the district is working with HMC, our project architect, to create documents and get approval from the California State Architect. Once the project goes out for bid, construction is anticipated to start in November 2018, with the stadium targeted to open for the 2019 football season.
WHS CSF will need your help to make any additional improvements. We’ll be reaching out to local businesses and families, and holding various fundraising events in order to raise money for this project. Donations can be sent, payable to Woodland Schools Foundation (WSF), to the address below.
