HAVING BACKYARD VIEW
Serra Mesa veteran has lived above stadium site for 50 years, seen it all
A red-tailed hawk f loated in the warm breeze above a Serra Mesa hillside on Friday afternoon, dodging a couple power lines before diving to the ground and grabbing lunch to go.
The hawk took off without giving a second glance to the construction work continuing below on the new $310 million, 35,000-seat stadium San Diego State will call home in 2022. Saturday marks exactly 23 months before Sept. 3, 2022, the date for the Aztecs’ season opener against Arizona.
Larry Parmenter, 77, moved to Serra Mesa nearly 50 years ago now, to a home on Broadview Avenue with a back yard that overlooks Mission Valley.
It gives him a prime view to watch what is transpiring below.
Last month, construction workers completed breakup and removal of the parking lot asphalt on the west side of the SDSU Mission Valley property.
Meanwhile, underground utilities were identified for relocation and other site preparation work was done.
This month, excavation of the actual stadium footprint will be the primary objective. That work already was underway in the northwest portion of what used to be the parking lot.
SDSU officials announced two weeks ago that the Aztecs will no longer play at SDCCU Stadium, moving football games to Carson’s Dignity Health Sports Park.
It was said that one benefit of the move would be to allow construction to move at a quicker pace, although it was not apparent in a visit Friday afternoon that anything additional was taking place.
The eastern parking lot remains as it was a month ago, with law enforcement officials continuing to use a portion of the area for drive training for academy recruits.
Additionally, there have been no updates as to when fans can expect the Construction Cam that was to be in place weeks ago for live stream look-ins.
Maybe Parmenter can film a couple videos for Twitter.
The New York native came to
San Diego in 1960 after joining the Navy and being assigned to North Island for training.
It is an appropriate origin story for this “sleepy Navy town.”
Nodding toward cars passing SDCCU Stadium along Interstate 15, Parmenter remembered when it was “just a two-lane road.”
Now, he said he’s glad he put in dualpaned windows because the traff ic noise from Interstate 8 can be distracting.
“You open them up and you can hear that,” Parmenter said. “It was pretty loud this morning.”
He pointed to the shopping center anchored by IKEA and Costco and recalled when it was a water pit that served the sand and gravel company located there.
And he looked west toward all the condos that extend for blocks on the north side of Friars Road and wondered if it won’t seem like so many once SDSU Mission Valley builds out with 4,600 housing units. And a 400-room hotel that is planned.
“I didn’t know about the hotel,” said Parmenter, who mixed memories of the old stadium with thoughts about the new one.
Parmenter mostly went to baseball games, but he took in a Chargers game now and then.
“The wife and I went down there when Johnny Unitas was quarterback,” Parmenter said. “We sat up in the nose bleed seats, watching him get up off the grass all the time.”
The Chargers acquired Unitas from the Baltimore Colts before the 1973 season. He was sacked eight times in the season opener at Washington and barely made it through the year (rookie Dan Fouts replaced him as starter three games into the season).
“He didn’t have much of a line at the time, “Parmenter recalled. “The whole time he was here, they kind of ate him up.”
He laughed while pointing out the glass high-rise building that overlooked the old Chargers practice field on the southwestern edge of the property. That’s where Chargers head coach Don Coryell was sure Raiders owner Al Davis had located someone to spy on practices.
Parmenter’s back yard was a prime gathering spot for the annual KGB SkyShow.
He also recalled the time a misguided music fan climbed a power tower just beyond his property to try to get a distant glimpse inside the stadium.
A policeman went through Parmenter’s back yard to get to the man before he electrocuted himself.
On another occasion, a city official asked to attach a device to his back fence to measure and record decibel levels produced by a particular rock band, which would be fined if it was too loud.
Parmenter said with a grin that “we banged a couple beer cans together” next to the thing to see how much noise they could register.
Being so close to the action did have its advantages, like advance warning when something special happened.
“It used to be you’d be watching a game and hear a roar,” Parmenter said, “and you’d have to wait until the TV signal went to purgatory and came back onto your TV.
“It would be 10-20 seconds (before the play was televised), so you knew you better pay attention because something was going to happen.”
Things changed when the Chargers moved out of town in 2017, but the outlook in Mission Valley had changed years earlier.
“The thing I missed the most is when the Padres went downtown (in 2004),” Parmenter said. “What’s left, the Aztecs and the Holiday Bowl?”
Now? Nothing.
“I don’t know why they couldn’t have done something with this stadium (to refurbish it), but we’re beyond that now,” Parmenter said. “It’s sitting there rotting.
“I think it’s going to look better when they do everything they’re planning. Right now it’s wasted space.”