During the Sept. 29 groundbreaking ceremony for Chittick Field, 6th District Councilmember Dee Andrews discusses the latest plans for renovations, including new athletic fields and facilities, at the 19-acre site that doubles as a Los Angeles County storm-water detention basin primarily during rainy season.
Staff Writer
Bulldozers set the stage for an event that has been in the making for many years. Just two days before heavy machines began plowing dirt on Monday, 6th District Long Beach Councilmember Dee Andrews hosted a ceremony on Sept. 29 to celebrate the groundbreaking of major renovations to a 19-acre site, formally known as Chittick Field.
The momentous occasion, attended by Long Beach and Signal Hill city officials, kicked off a $4.3-million project to create a new recreational sports park that will come with added lighting and a new parking lot at the site traditionally referred to as Hamilton Bowl, between Walnut and Cherry avenues, just north of Pacific Coast Highway.
While the underutilized field will still serve as a Los Angeles County storm-water detention basin, hence its other nicknames “the hole” and “the dust bowl,” the grounds will eventually be overflowing with new athletic facilities, including a fitness circuit, three soccer fields, a 400-meter all-weather track-and-field and a football field.
For Andrews and many central Long Beach residents, it’s been a long-time coming for the upgrades that are expected to benefit local schools, youth and 75,000 residents who live within one mile of the site. “We’re finally going to get the renovation off the ground… putting something productive here that will be successful in a positive element,” said Andrews, who won the all-American high-school football and track award as a Poly High School Jackrabbit. “Really, it’s a dream come true.”
It’s been seven years since The Salvation Army first proposed to help fund the construction of a Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center in Long Beach. Chittick Field was chosen as the site to build a vast community complex, once envisioned with a price-tag of about $140 million, that would have included swimming pools, baseball and soccer fields, a gymnasium and community meeting rooms.
Like other Kroc Centers, the proposal was made with the assumption that The Salvation Army would provide a major portion of funding from an endowment of Joan Croc, widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Croc, while the City was expected to pitch in to raise the remaining funds needed. However, in 2010 The Salvation Army canceled the development, citing a lack of community funds raised for the project.
Andrews, who indicated that he had reservations of the Kroc Center project ever being completed, said the advantage of the new project is that it will be free for the community. “When they said they were going to put the Kroc Center here, and they were talking about they were going to put [several million dollars] in the 6th District, I just laughed,” he said. “That’s not going to happen, but this will happen…What they’re going to put here will be free, and that, in a district like this, means everything.”
Kroc Center paved way for project
But not all was entirely lost from the Kroc Center proposal. Major Rudy Hedgren, director of operations for The Salvation Army in Long Beach, points out that the forthcoming renovations might never have moved forward if it wasn’t for “tremendous” efforts by The Salvation Army that, in many ways, paved the way for the new project.
According to a letter sent by Hedgren via email, one of the most significant achievements was providing the City with the ability to obtain a 99-year lease of the property from the county with the help of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The Salvation Army insisted on the lease term to “insure control of the facility and protect the large investment,” he said, adding that the lease was negotiated by the City of Long Beach to be later assigned to The Salvation Army. Now the City is able to take advantage of the lease.
Another achievement was preparing an environmental impact report (EIR) that took 18 months to complete and included increased water retention, new pumps and clean water requirements. Hedgren said The Salvation Army spent “millions of dollars” on preparing the environmental documents that were later donated to the City. He said engineering firm Moffatt and Nichol developed a design that would include more pumps and provide for continuous use of the facility. “It is wonderful that these efforts are being directed to the new project,” Hedgren said. “The ability to validate the concept and secure approvals from the county is a testament to The Salvation Army’s determination to help the community. These efforts began the dream of improving Chittick Field that the City of Long Beach is completing.”
While initial fencing and grading construction began this week, major construction won’t get started until next year, since the county prohibits construction at the site during the “rainy season,” which lasts from Oct. 15 to April 15.
A chance to play at ‘home’ field
Although the site was first developed in 1936 as a storm-water detention basin, the field also has been used for baseball and soccer games for more than 50 years. Studies have shown that over the past 25 years the fields were flooded only less than five days per year. Andrews said the new facilities will help children stay active and provide facilities for local high schools, particularly Poly High School, to play home games.
Rob Shock, athletic director for Poly, said the school’s top-ranking sports programs will eventually be able to use the track and football fields for practice and possibly home games instead of having to use the Long Beach Veterans Memorial Stadium. “We are confined at our space at Poly, and this will allow us…to practice on a turf field,” he said. “For the kids that live in this area here and who attend Poly, it’s going to be an opportunity for them to play in their own back yard.”
Mayor Bob Foster said the field will be a “jewel of central Long Beach.” He added, “This is going to be a great facility, not only for this area, but for the whole city…It’s going to change the lives of young people in many ways. It’s going to make them more productive and feel better about where they live. I believe, 20 years from now, we’re going to look back on this and say this is one of the turning points of making this a better community and a better city.”
