Editor’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 exactly two years from today — Sept. 3, 2022. The Union-Tribune will do monthly updates tracking the stadium’s progress.
Home games for the San Diego State football team figured to look and feel different this fall even before a pandemic prompted a postponement.
With construction commencing three weeks ago on SDSU’s new Mission Valley stadium, players, coaches and fans were in for a much different home game experience.
SDSU’s traditional Warrior Walk into SDCCU Stadium before games goes right down the middle of what now is a construction zone in the western portion of the parking lot. The Aztecs will enter through the eastern tunnel when games resume.
View looking east, just beyond area SDSU football players would make pregame Warrior Walk toward tunnel entrance.
(Kirk Kenney / San Diego Union-Tribune)
The new stadium will be built a long throw from the current one, just northwest of the facility that opened 53 years ago.
The construction footprint is fenced off north and south from Friars Road to the trolley bridge. Its eastern edge borders the property’s main entrance and runs along the road of the stadium’s inner circle. The western edge is parallel to the parking lot’s outer perimeter.
Heavy equipment moved in moments after the City handed over the keys to the place. In the past 21 days, light poles have been removed, along with curbs, sidewalks and parking lot asphalt.
Most of the lot has been dug up and much of it removed (although the parking area at J1 is now piled high with debris).
A pair of specialized construction vehicles continued the monotonous task of going back and forth digging up the asphalt, tilling the soil such that it resembled farmland prepared for planting.
The fencing and trees that separated the inner and outer parking lots are gone.
So, too, are the section signs that identified where to meet for pre- and post-game tailgates.
At least one of the signs is headed home with an Aztecs fan.
“We had one person who is making a significant gift ask for their parking sign,” said John David Wicker, SDSU’s director of athletics. “I don’t recall which one it was, but we’ll make it happen.
“We’re open to accepting significant gifts and figuring out a way to get tailgating signs.”
After the last game of the 2021 season is played at SDCCU Stadium, other mementos from inside the stadium will be auctioned off as well.
“We’re going to do a seat sale in some way, so be on the lookout for that,” Wicker said.
Wet and dry utilities have been located and trenching has begun for relocating them.
Some excavation has begun in parking lot sections F1 and G1, while debris piles up in J1 near the trolley bridge.
(Kirk Kenney / San Diego Union-Tribune)
Since the 2020 football season has been postponed until spring — if then — the Aztecs didn’t have to worry about getting the stadium game ready for Saturday, which was originally scheduled as the team’s season opener against Sacramento State.
No events have taken place inside the stadium this year, so there were going to be some anxious moments making sure the electricity still worked and the toilets still flushed.
Would anyone have been surprised come kickoff if fans were asked to point their car headlights toward the field?
In previous years, Section D1 would be crowded with carnival rides as part of Aztec Village.
On Monday, much of the area was piled high with dirt from an adjacent area that was being trenched.
That day, two people (ecological and cultural observers) sat in chairs not far from the SDSU ticket office, peering through the green wind screen to watch the digging.
Observers watch digging in the area of parking lot that had served as Aztec Village for football games.
(Kirk Kenney / San Diego Union-Tribune)
One of those watching wore a orange and yellow vest that read Native American Monitor on the back.
Dairy farms populated Mission Valley in the years leading up to the construction of then-San Diego Stadium, but the river valley was home to Kumeyaay villages in the centuries before that.
After groundbreaking ceremonies Aug. 17, Wicker said the area’s history will be detailed at the new stadium.
“We’re trying to tell the story of Mission Valley,” he said. “This was Kumeyaay land to begin with, and then dairy farms and then you’ve got a great stadium.
“It’s not so great right now, but it was a great stadium and you think of all the events it hosted. So we’re going to be able to tell that story throughout the building.”
Added Wicker: “We’re going to go through and pull out different parts of the stadium that have some type of memory attached to it and we’re actually going to put that in the new stadium as part of our brand story.”
A Stadium Cam was expected to be in place by now and live streaming for fans to follow the progress of construction, but a school official said Wednesday that they are “working through cam technology and think we will have that figured out in the next couple of days.”
Next 30 days: The plan is to continue site preparation, with parking lot demolition and trenching for relocation of utilities as well as site excavation and accumulation of dirt for grading and leveling. Dirt will come both from onsite “borrow pits” as well as offsite sources.
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Aztec Stadium update: Looking down on creation - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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