New fields offer room to play

After 11 years of studies, planning and construction, Mountain View is set to open the new Shoreline Athletic Fields next week. The city is celebrating the grand opening of the $15 million facility, which adds over 5 acres of badly needed field space, on Nov. 14 from 10 a.m. to noon, at 2450 Garcia Ave.

The driving force behind the Shoreline Athletic Fields was a lack of field space in the city. Rey Rodriguez. the senior project manager, said planning staff has been looking at what kind of new recreational fields could be added since 2004 — and more importantly, where they would be located. Since the areas south of Highway 101 are built out, Rodriguez said staff decided to look northward, to a new multi-field facility in the North Bayshore area.

A 2008 study found that the city had a 19.75-acre “deficit” of fields, causing overcrowding in places like McKelvey Park. And it’s not just for baseball, either.

“The number of requests for field use has increased over the last few years with the growth of nontraditional sports, an increase in year-round sports and the popularity of club sports,” the report states.

The new athletic fields could certainly do the trick. The fields include a baseball and softball diamond, along with several soccer fields that can be in use at the same time, according to Lauren Merriman, recreation supervisor for the city. There are lines drawn in the turf for lacrosse as well.

The fields will be open to the public daily. Just like at any other park in Mountain View, youth sports organizations will have priority to use the fields for game days, but the fields are otherwise open to all, Merriman said.

Mountain View Little League President Mike Reelfs said the new athletic fields will definitely help, since field availability has been scarce lately. There are 37 teams of Mountain View kids who need to practice, Reelfs said, and doubling up teams on the same practice field can pose safety concerns.

“We are very grateful for new and more fields in Mountain View and look forward to many games out there,” Reelfs said.

To the south of the fields is a play structure for children, batting cages and a 300-square-foot concessions stand. The facility also includes 182 parking spaces, which Merriman said would be enough even for a “worst case” scenario — a big game ending right as spectators and players for the next game are coming in. Directly to the east of the parking lot is a half-acre of burrowing owl habitat.

While the location seemed ideal for building a large facility on undeveloped land, it wasn’t without its problems. The field is partially on top of a landfill, and as the garbage decomposes, the land settles, Rodriguez said. This could lead to some pretty lumpy fields as the ground sinks over time.

In other to minimize the effect on the field, the city dumped 120,000 cubic yards of soil on top of the field site, compressing the land and speeding up the sinking process by about 10 years. For a period of time, most of the site was covered up with piles of dirt 20 to 25 feet tall.

“What would normally take a number of years we could do in a short amount of time,” Rodriguez said.

The field itself is composed of artificial turf, which the City Council favored instead of grass back in 2011. Council members said the synthetic alternative will allow for heavier field use, while city staff cited sticky regulations in regards to irrigating a grass field without the water percolating into the refuse that lies beneath.

When the city goes in to replace the artificial turf every 8 to 10 years, Rodriguez said that would be the time to re-level the field for any depressions caused by the decomposing landfill.

Another challenge with the location is that it’s far from most of the city’s residential areas, compared to alternatives like McKelvey Park and the Crittenden Middle School field. Nestled between Shoreline Golf Links and tech companies like Google and Intuit, the field seems best situated for software engineers on their lunch break. Merriman said traffic getting into the area is also a concern, and the recreation department expects a majority of people using the field will be coming in on weekends.

“It’s definitely not a neighborhood location,” Merriman said.

The opening day celebration will include a brief ceremony and a ribbon-cutting, as well as soccer and baseball games later that afternoon. The event will also include food trucks, give-aways and children’s activities, Merriman said.