Atop the vibrant green soccer field of Civic Park lie five diamonds. These diamonds are reminiscent of the bases that shaped the baseball infield of the original Civic Stadium that burned down in 2015.
The rebuilt park opened in 2020 and is now home to the Lane United Football Club and the Kidsports FieldHouse and Turf Field. In 2022, the Eugene Civic Alliance moved to phase two of Civic Park’s construction, which is focused on additional seating and restrooms. This phase is projected to be ready for the public by this November, says Nate Baldwin, the associate executive director of Kidsports.
The Eugene Civic Alliance bought historic Civic Stadium from the Eugene School District 4J in 2015 with the intent of creating a welcoming space for youth sports. That same year, the stadium went up in flames when four boys lit debris in the press box of the old-school wooden structure.
Baldwin says the fire created an empty canvas. “It became an unexpected blank slate,” he says. “Eugene Civic Alliance changed course and that is where the vision and concept of this building came to be.”
Kidsports is a nonprofit youth sports program in the Eugene and Springfield area. The 70-year-old nonprofit provides nine different sports leagues to kids ages four to 18. Kidsports is “designed to make [sports] accessible and keep [children] engaged,” Baldwin says.
ECA and Kidsports formed a collaboration to create new opportunities for children’s recreation.
The project was divided into two phases. The first phase, costing around $30 million, created parking, the turf field, the fieldhouse and landscaping. The facilities had a soft opening in 2020, but the entirety of this phase was funded mostly by donors and completed in 2022.
Phase two is focused on constructing a 2,500-seat stadium, additional restrooms and a scoreboard, according to the park’s website. The additions will cost around $18 million and enhance the entertainment and engagement aspect of Civic Park. Eugene Civic Alliance has already raised $13 million for this next phase, and the upgrades are anticipated to be completed by this November.
Baldwin credits the goodwill of the community, which has financially supported the project, now in its ninth year.
“Almost all of [the funding] has come from private donations, independent donors, community partners and local businesses. There has been some state funding, but no local tax dollars,” Baldwin says.
The new 2,500-seat stadium will be situated in the footprint of the original Civic Park grandstand. Before 2009, the grandstand was home to the Eugene Emeralds fan base. The minor league baseball team played in the stadium for around 40 years before moving to the University of Oregon’s PK Park.
Jenny Gutierrez, a mother of three who moved to Eugene in 2003, remembers attending countless Emerald baseball games with her then-young children. “Civic Stadium had these unique, wooden grandstands, which made this rumbling noise when we’d stomp our feet rooting for our preferred team. It was fun for kids and adults,” she said.
The Emeralds have been “temporarily” hosting games at PK Park since 2010, but are currently on the hunt for a new stadium. Minor league stadiums now have to implement new Major League Baseball federation guidelines such as LED lighting and women’s changing rooms. The Emeralds’ lease to play at PK Park will expire in less than 10 years, and in spring of this year, the team was more than $50 million short of the projected cost to build a new permanent home.
To fund their potential new facility, the Emeralds focused on local tax dollars. On a recent ballot, Eugene voters were asked if they want their tax dollars to contribute to a $90 million multi-use stadium that will partially function as the Emeralds’ new baseball facility.
The reliance on the community’s tax dollars seem to have caused the Eugene Emeralds’ future stadium to be a swing and a miss. Only 33 percent of Eugene voters voted “yes.”
The Emeralds played a major role in Civic Park’s past, but a different sport will be a part of the park’s future. Phase two of Civic Park construction is paving the way for the first professional soccer team to come to Eugene in 2026.
Since 2021, Eugene’s pre-professional soccer team, Lane United Football Club, has hosted games at Civic Park. Lane United is a part of the United Soccer League Two, the leading pre-professional league in the country.
The Civic Park turf is home to Lane United men’s and women’s teams. Both pre-professional soccer teams share the field with Kidsports.
John Galas, the head coach of Lane United FC, said that Civic Park is a valuable space for sports programming. “It’s wonderful to see kids come to [Lane United] games and run around the field at halftime, get to see the players and interact with them,” he says.
Civic Park is a space created for the entirety of the Eugene community. The turf has become acquainted with cleats of professional soccer players, all the way down to children running around in their velcro-fastened shoes.
Galas says that this has been “a real source of inspiration for the club, and certainly for the players to know that they can have a positive influence just by playing something that they love doing.”
Once phase two is completed, Civic Park will be a suitable home for Eugene’s first professional soccer team.
In the press release announcing United Soccer League’s intended expansion, USL Deputy CEO and Chief Real Estate Officer Justin Papadakis says, “We’re excited by the potential that USL Eugene and the entire Eugene community has shown. We’re looking forward to continuing our work with Dave and John Galas, the Eugene Civic Alliance and Kidsports in order to bring professional soccer to the Emerald City.”Civic Park and Kidsports have opened up a variety of athletic opportunities for children and the community as a whole. “A lot of our work is designed to make sports available to as many as possible, and keep them engaged for as long as possible. That’s part of our mission. ‘All Kids Play,’” Baldwin says.
Gutierrez’s three children all participated in various Kidsports programs while growing up, such as soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis and volleyball. “As local community members, we found it to be a great learning experience for life,” she says. “It taught them skills in teamwork, responsibility, humility and taking pride in practicing a good work ethic — all things we learn by being in relationship with one another.”