Salinas Regional Soccer Complex prepares for grand opening Saturday
The Salinas Regional Soccer Complex is preparing for its grand opening on Saturday.
The celebration will start at 10 a.m. at its location on Constitution Boulevard. There will be music, refreshments and information about local service providers.
“This is going to be the biggest soccer complex in central California,” Mayor Joe Gunter said. “Tomorrow we do our big grand opening and of course there will be speeches, but what’s important is there will be kids playing on this grass.”
There will be seven full sized soccer fields, but this is just the first step of four phases that will more than double the size of the Salinas Soccer Complex.
“I hope one day we can say we’ll have 56 or 60 soccer teams playing here,” Gunter said.
It’s a proud day for the complexes new manager who remembers playing soccer on what was a very different looking field.
“Before we didn’t have top quality fields. We’d have our youth have to travel a half hour or an hour
to go play soccer because outside teams wouldn’t want to come here because the conditions our fields were in,” Salinas Soccer Complex Coordinator Jonathan De Anda said.
The new complex will draw teams from out of the area with tournaments possibly boosting the local economy. The mayor says in a way this will even act as crime prevention.
“If kids are doing this they’re not worried about being in a gang they’re out here getting exercise being healthy. If you come out here on a weekend look at the families that are here,” Gunter said.
The city says with about another 8 million dollars they’ll have the funding to complete the entire project. By next week youth leagues should be out at the fields practicing.
The project has been 10 years in the making. Assembly member Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said having the soccer complex will help fight against health issues like obesity and diabetes and that it also provides safe, affordable recreational activities.
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