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Profile of Aztec Stadium continues to take shape while San Diego Stadium is going, going
By KIRK KENNEYEditor’s note: San Diego State aims to build its new 35,000-seat stadium in time for the football team’s season opener against Arizona — Sept. 3, 2022 — which is now 577 days away. The Union-Tribune is doing monthly updates tracking the stadium’s progress.
In a few short weeks — perhaps even days — the new Aztec Stadium under construction at the SDSU Mission Valley site will cast a larger shadow than the old San Diego Stadium being demolished.
As construction of Aztec Stadium moves into its sixth month, the project reaches the one-quarter mark in its scheduled completion.
Meanwhile, San Diego Stadium fades from view in a timeframe accelerated last year when the facility was determined to be uninhabitable.
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A few notes and observations from what’s going up and what’s coming down:
Aztec Stadium
The footprint of the new stadium has been evident for some time now.
Where the actual field will be located is crowded now with supplies, equipment, construction vehicles and industrial trash containers, among other things.
Most of the vertical construction is to the west of the property, where the foundations for stands — this will be the “home” side of the stadium — are evident along with support posts.
Derek Grice, SDSU’s executive associate athletic director for Mission Valley development, said event-level spaces on this side will include the Field Club, home, visitor and auxiliary locker rooms, press conference room and media/photo work room.
Lower-level areas will include the training room, exam and X-ray rooms, hydrotherapy room, equipment room and commissary.
There also is notable activity in what will be the southeast corner of the facility, behind where end zone seating will be located. This area will include officials locker rooms, loading dock, field and ground maintenance rooms and building maintenance shop.
The eastern and northern sides of the bowl have been built up with dirt, but no construction has begun there.
Speaking of built up, tons and tons of dirt has been brought to the site — as one observer said on Monday, “there’s a big hole now somewhere” — to build up the areas just west of the main entrance and north of the new stadium (where a 400-room hotel is planned) that makes those areas virtually level with Friars Road.
There is a body of water south of the stadium site near the trolley bridge. Someday, the area will be the site of SDSU research facilities and underground parking. For now, recent rains collected there make it resemble a giant swimming pool.
The rain also pooled in and around some areas of the stadium construction site, so dirt was brought in to raise those portions in order to avoid more puddling that could complicate construction during the area’s wettest months.
San Diego Stadium
Demolition of the stadium began in December, when the wrecking ball — or, to be more accurate, jack hammers attached to the end of long-armed demolition machines — brought down perhaps a dozen sections of seats in that first month.
The first area to come down was the last to go up, part of the expansion before the 1998 Super Bowl that enclosed the eastern portion of the stadium.
Substantially more progress was made in January, giving the stadium a Roman Colosseum-like appearance of decay.
More than half of the stadium has disappeared now. It affords a look south from Friars Road to view trolley cars pass by, along with a glimpse of buildings previously hidden for half a century behind the stadium.
The remaining stadium stands stretch from Section 20 to Section 35 — picture behind the plate area ranging from third base to first base.
Those remaining sections visible above ground level will disappear in coming weeks.
Grice said demolition is expected to be down to the Plaza Level by late March or early April.
He said complete demo work, removing debris piles, is not expected to be completed until the end of the summer.
Standing all along now on the east side is the scoreboard, or what’s left of it.
The SDCCU marquee was toppled over in December, just as the company’s naming rights were about to expire.
ADVERTISEMENTThe word “STADIUM” remains above a bank of seven dozen lights.
The screen that presented replays, game scores and other information is dark.
Advertisements for Pepsi and Toyota remain on the front side. The mural on the back is gone.
The scoreboard has been left standing because it is located directly above the east field tunnel.
Bringing down the scoreboard would have brought chunks of concrete down and blocked the tunnel, which needs to remain clear for inside access to the field level.
Grice said the scoreboard is expected to come down sometime in March.
Much of the exterior ring, where the ticket windows and entrance gates are located, remains in place, although the part on the west side has been torn down to allow demo vehicles to get in and out.
Seats inside the stadium were removed over the past three months, including those sold in pairs to fans who wanted a piece of the history from the stadium.
There still are 10 sections of blue seats east of the stadium adjacent to the trolley bridge. They were movable field level seats removed when the stadium was put into a football configuration.
Located nearby is a pile of busted-up concrete from the stadium waiting to go through the crusher that is breaking it into little pieces that will be used as part of the fill on the property.
Much of the area, especially along the property’s east side where nearly 5,000 residential units are planned, will be raised by several feet.
This will once and for all — it is hoped — eliminate the flooding issues that were evident when periodic heavy rains flooded the parking lot there.
Most of the asphalt has been ground up and removed on the east side now.
So, just as with sporting events, folks will have to go elsewhere to attend an RV show.