Friends of Civic Stadium will continue to plea to the community of Eugene to keep it’s historic stadium intact.
By: Kyle Hebel
Eugene’s Civic Stadium recently celebrated it’s 75th birthday on Oct. 20 of last year. However, with the YMCA and other bidders vying for a chance to get their hands on the stadium’s property, Civic Stadium’s birthday celebrations may end at 75.
Members of Friends of Civic Stadium and others have been fighting in support of the land and encouraging the city of Eugene to raise money to renovate the land. Other organizations like the YMCA and Fred Meyer supermarket are pleading their case on why they deserve to turn Civic Stadium into another supermarket or YMCA facility.
On Feb. 20, Eugene’s City Council gave Friends of Civic Stadium one chance to save their beloved stadium. According to The Oregonian, they have six months to raise $3 million.
“The City Council put up the $4.5 million purchase price — on the condition that the nonprofit raise $3 million for rehabilitating the former home of the minor league Emeralds” (The Oregonian).
The original idea to build Civic Stadium in 1937 came from the enhanced interest in sports in the Eugene community. But even before Civic Stadium was built, it was fighting an uphill battle to stay relevant within the community because of the Great Depression. To ask the citizens of Eugene to provide money to build an athletic facility when they had little money to spare was a difficult task. However, it was a task the community eventually overcame because of the overall support from the public.
Civic Stadium: The Early Years. Photo retrieved from Friends of Civic Stadium.
“Eugene’s Civic Stadium would never have been constructed without the display of outstanding public support it received and the cooperation of the numerous civic agencies involved. Most of the lumber and materials and a great deal of skilled labor were donated. This unique cohesion of community development and city planning illustrates the camaraderie apparent in WPA projects built throughout the country during the Depression-era” (Friends of Civic Stadium).
Civic Stadium was originally used as a baseball and football stadium for the local high schools. Thirty years later, as the stadium enhanced its capable capacity, it became a stadium for minor league baseball teams. In 1969, the Philadelphia Phillies were the first minor league baseball team to call Civic Stadium its home. Later, the Eugene Emeralds would call Civic Stadium its home from 1985-2009.
The Eugene Emeralds was the Major League Baseball affiliated team for several teams throughout their tenure at Civic Stadium, with those teams being the Philadelphia Phillies (1969-1973), the Cincinnati Reds (1975-1983), the Kansas City Royals (1984-1994), the Atlanta Braves (1995-1998), the Chicago Cubs (1999-2000) and finally, the San Diego Padres (2001-2009). The most notable MLB baseball player to play for the Eugene Emeralds is Mike Schmidt, future Hall of Fame first and third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Mike Schmidt, hall of fame first and third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, started playing for the Eugene Emeralds in the early 1970s. Photo by Heinz Kluetmeier, Sports Illustrated.
The Eugene Emeralds would call Civic Stadium its home until 2009. On Sept. 3, 2009, the Eugene Emeralds played its last home game ever at Civic Stadium in front of a sold-out crowd of about 5,000 people in a 5-3 loss to the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. The Emeralds didn’t want to move but their request for the city to renovate Civic Stadium was denied. Renovations were estimated at $15 million and the city of Eugene wasn’t willing to pay that steep price to modernize the stadium.
A fan takes a chuck of grass from Civic Stadium as a memento from the Eugene Emeralds last game. Photo by Dan Morrison, KVAL News.
Nearly five years has passed since Civic Center hosted its last baseball game. Over the years, the stadium has slowly transformed from a beautiful ballpark to a vacant wasteland. However, Brandon Grilc, Communications Coordinator for Friends of Civic Stadium, doesn’t view Civic Stadium as a run-down junkyard but as a beautiful landmark that represents the city of Eugene.
“This is Eugene’s,” said Grilc. “This is one of the city’s last historical structures. We really need to appreciate that because once this is demolished, if it does get demolished, there is no going back. The community is going to have to wait another 75 years before you can ever consider something to be as significant (as Civic Stadium).”
Friends of Civic Stadium will continue to fight to make sure Civic Stadium is a vital part of the community for another 75 years. Unfortunately, the six-month deadline to raise $3 million is coming up in August and they have yet to raise enough money to reach that goal.
Friends of Civic Stadium care about this beloved structure that they refuse to lose it without a fight.
“It is rotting away for no apparent reason,” Grilc says. “All we can do is continue to work with the community, with other businesses and with independent entrepreneurs and philanthropists in terms of raising the money. Whether or not we can raise the money or the city agrees to it, all I have to say is that we are just doing our best. By the time this is all said and done, we are definitely going to make an impression on the city’s decision on what they are going to do with it.”
Civic Stadium was once thought to stand the test of time in Eugene; now time may be the stadium’s potential downfall.
Sources:
http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/02/eugenes_civic_stadium_gets_a_c.html
http://www.savecivicstadium.org/