San Diego Union-Tribune

LEVELING THE FIELD OF PLAY

- BY KIRK KENNEY

The final light tower comes crashing down on Monday. The stadium is being cleared to make way for San Diego State’s new 35,000-seat stadium, which is scheduled to be ready for the Aztecs’ football season opener in September 2022. Story,

San Diego Stadium is hours away from being nothing more than a memory.

The final piece still standing — Section 22, to be exact — includes the upper bowl area after the last light tower came down Monday morning.

A jackhammer mounted at the end of a long-armed demolition vehicle was poking it to pieces that came crashing to the ground, just after 9 a.m. The picker was going to keep pecking away the rest of the day — with a water cannon shooting a steady spray to keep airborne dust to a minimum — until the remainder came down and the concrete could be trucked away elsewhere on the site.

Within the next day or so, the stadium will completely vanish from the view of travelers along Friars Road and adjacent freeways.

“Obviously, this is the end of one era and the start of a new era,” said Gina Jacobs, SDSU’s associate vice president for Mission Valley developmen­t, as she observed from the western edge of the site.

The most prominent structure now on the 166acre site is Aztec Stadium, the 35,000-seat stadium going up in the northwest corner of the SDSU Mission Valley property. It is scheduled to be completed in time for the start of the Aztecs’ 2022 season.

The opening of San Diego Stadium on Aug. 20, 1967, drew a crowd of 45,988 for an exhibition game between the Chargers and Detroit Lions. The celebratio­n that day included speeches from local dignitarie­s and songs from a 400-member choir backed by a 1,000-member band. Sailors marched down the aisles carrying American flags while fireworks exploded overhead and 10,000 red, white and blue balloons were released into the air.

A dozen media members were on hand Monday to chronicle the 54-year-old structure’s final moments.

Because of environmen­tal concerns, there was no impressive implosion that would have reduced it to rubble in a matter of moments.

“We looked at implosion as an option for the demolition, but due to really strict air quality control regulation­s here in California, it was really just safer for us to do it in this way,” Jacobs said. “While it took a little

High school Athletes of theWeek are recognized through a partnershi­p between The San Diego Union-Tribune and the San Diego Sports Associatio­n. longer, we are on schedule for the stadium to be completed in 2022.”

That meant it was “wrecking-ball style over implosion.”

“We’re adjacent to the San Diego River, and we’ve got some environmen­tal sensitivit­ies that we want to be sensitive to, so it made more sense to do it that way,” Jacobs explained.

So a stadium that fell into disrepair from neglect over the past two decades experience­d an agonizingl­y slow death.

SDSU took ownership of the property in August. A month later, school officials announced that no more events would be held there. Aztecs home games were moved to Carson’s Dignity Health Sports Park for the 2020-21 seasons.

Some things were salvaged during the fall. In December,

some signage and equipment was auctioned off and pairs of seats were sold to fans interested in a piece of history. That’s also when demolition began in earnest.

The first sections torn down were the last ones to go up, those being located on both sides of the scoreboard. They were constructe­d during an $80 million expansion project in 1997.

Not long thereafter, with half the structure demolished, the stadium resembled some sort of Roman ruins.

The stadium’s final days were at hand late last week when work crews got down to the final section.

While the above-ground sections of the stadium now have been leveled, demo work will continue on the Plaza and Field levels.

“We should be done, including removing the structural foundation­al piles of the old stadium by the end of summer,” Derek Grice, SDSU’s

executive associate athletic director for Mission Valley developmen­t, said in a recent interview.

Much of the exterior ring, where the ticket windows and entrance gates were located, remains in place, although the part on the west side was torn down months ago to allow demo vehicles to get in and out.

Onsite concrete crushers located on the east side of the property are being used to reduce the chunks into small pieces.

“We reclaim and recycle as much of the existing stadium as possible,” Jacobs said. “In terms of the concrete and the asphalt of the parking lot, a majority of that is being ground up onsite and will be reused onsite for the fill and for the road base throughout the project.

“Other items are being reclaimed and, hopefully, recycled by our demo contractor­s.”

Much of the property is

being raised several feet to eliminate flooding issues that were especially evident on the eastern part of the property after heavy rains.

The area where San Diego Stadium stood will be where campus office/research and innovation/retail buildings are to be located. It also is where some of the 4,900 residentia­l units are to be constructe­d during a project that isn’t scheduled to be completely built out until 2037.

In the short term, it will serve as surface parking for those going to games at Aztec Stadium.

“We’ll grade out the site,” Grice said. “There might be some plots that are being set aside or that will be developed as residentia­l retail spaces (when the stadium opens).”

According to a school release, site infrastruc­ture and the River Park are scheduled to be completed in 2023.

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 ?? K.C. ALFRED U-T PHOTOS ?? Section 22, above the west tunnel, is the last upper section to be demolished Monday at the Mission Valley stadium.
K.C. ALFRED U-T PHOTOS Section 22, above the west tunnel, is the last upper section to be demolished Monday at the Mission Valley stadium.
 ?? JARROD VALLIERE U-T ?? The final pieces of San Diego Stadium are on the way to the ground on Monday morning in Mission Valley.
JARROD VALLIERE U-T The final pieces of San Diego Stadium are on the way to the ground on Monday morning in Mission Valley.
 ?? KIRK KENNEY U-T ?? View from Friars Road on Monday evening as work continued on tearing down last section of the stadium.
KIRK KENNEY U-T View from Friars Road on Monday evening as work continued on tearing down last section of the stadium.

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