At nearly a century old, the facilities of Santa Barbara High School’s Peabody Stadium have been showing their age for some time.
The track and field team practices at Santa Barbara City College since Peabody’s unusable asphalt track has kept the team from practicing at home since the mid-1990s.
The grandstand does not meet modern building and accessibility codes and only football, soccer, and lacrosse games can be played on the field nowadays.
But with donations pouring in from around the community for its renovation, Peabody Stadium plans to reemerge in 2018 as a modern, fully-functional athletics facility.
“It has a lot of history to it because it’s been here for so long, and it’s well loved by alums,” said Katie Jacobs, the director of development for the Foundation for Santa Barbara High School.
“Really what happened is it’s no longer serving our current students. It doesn’t meet the building codes, it doesn’t meet seismic codes, and it effectively needs to come down.”
Fundraising for the renovation kicked off during the fall of 2014. Of the $17 million needed to cover the stadium’s transformation, $16.65 million has been raised, Jacobs said.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District put $9 million in bond funds toward the project and the State of California pitched in another $3 million in grants due to the grandstand’s earthquake-vulnerability issues.
Raising the remaining $5 million has been the task of the Foundation for Santa Barbara High School, which got involved in light of 800 physical-education students no longer having a place to exercise, Jacobs said.
“We have had all kinds of people give,” she said. “We have very strong alumni support at this point and strong community support as well.”
Charles Schwab, the businessman and investor who graduated from SBHS in 1955, donated significantly, as did as MarBorg Industries.
The planned tunnel to the stadium will be named Hutton Parker Tunnel after a $250,000 grant from the local Hutton Parker Foundation. Three generations of the Parker family, including Hutton Parker Foundation president Thomas Parker, attended SBHS.
A plaza in the stadium will be named after alumni Pete and Gerd Jordano, of Jordano’s Food Service. Another plaza will be named after alumnus Doug Allred and his wife, Ann, after donations from his Class of 1953.
Much of the remaining $350,000 could be covered by a challenge grant from an anonymous donor, Jacobs said. All donations made prior to SBHS’s June 8 graduation will be matched by the donor, up to $100,000.
“Now is the time for all those people in the community who have whatever to give, to give to get us to reach that end,” she said.
Once it’s finished, the renovated stadium will feature a 2,300-seat grandstand that will incorporate a classroom, weight room, and press box.
An all-weather track will make on-campus track practice and meets a reality again, and a new artificial turf field will be fitted for football, soccer and lacrosse games.
The facility will be open to the public during non-school hours, Jacobs said, making it a valuable community resource for Santa Barbara’s nearby neighborhoods.
According to Jacobs, the project should take around 15 months to complete, and construction will likely commence around August or September pending construction approval from the state.
Design for the renovated facilities is being done by Kruger Bensen Ziemer Architects.
To donate to the renovation project, visit the Foundation for Santa Barbara High School website.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
