Construction hours and tree removal for the $38 million Santa Barbara High School Peabody Stadium renovation project were concerns discussed Monday at a public meeting for neighbors.
The 2,300-seat facility will break ground Wednesday morning, and construction is expected to be finished in April 2019.
The public won’t see the majority of finished repairs on the stadium.
Fixing storm drains, aging utilities, as well as reshaping and grading the stadium field is 70 percent of the construction, according to Santa Barbara Unified School District officials.
At the meeting, SBUSD facilities director Dave Hetyonk said the demolition and construction timeline has not been finalized.
“We believe that we gave the contractor enough time to complete the project — if everything goes well,” Hetyonk said.
A handful of those in attendance raised concern about the construction noise.
Workers are required to follow city standards when it comes to construction hour guidelines, Hetyonk said.
Under Santa Barbara city municipal code, it’s unlawful for any person to build or demolish between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m., seven days a week.
Crews are expected to cut down more than 100 trees near the stadium and plant more than 100 new trees around the high school campus, said Sam Maphis, president at Earthform Design, the project’s landscape architect. All new plants use reclaimed water, Maphis said.
Funding for the project comes from the Foundation for Santa Barbara High School, voter-approved bond measures, developer fees and California seismic mitigation funds, Hetyonk said.
Kruger Bensen Ziemer Architects designed the stadium renovation.
The Santa Barbara-based company has designed several auditoriums, higher education building and theaters, including The Lobero Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara, rehabilitation of Santa Barbara’s Carrillo Recreation Center, and Santa Barbara City Fire Department’s Station No. 1 at 121 W. Carrillo St.
AMG & Associates, based in Santa Clarita, was awarded the general contracting bid for the project.
The new stadium, which will seat 500 fewer fans than the current one, will have a new concrete grandstand, an artificial turf field and synthetic track, and modernized sound and lighting systems.
The project includes replacing two storm drain conduits, which is expected to mitigate ponding or flooding within the stadium and surrounding residential area.
Joe Flowers, principal civil engineer with Flowers & Associates, was on hand to address the storm drain replacement.
“We are repairing the storm drains to better protect the stadium field,” Flowers said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
