Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
Thanks to the efforts of a group of dedicated Eugene citizens, the tragedy of the fire gave rise to an athletic and social hub.
Eugene’s historic Civic Stadium, built in 1938, went up in flames 10 years ago Sunday, on June 29, 2015.
The cause? Four boys, between 10 and 12 years old, were playing with matches in the old press box. Their sentence was up to five years of probation. Because they were minors, their names have never been released.
Civic Stadium had been beloved in the community. Dennis Hebert moved to Eugene in 1987 and kept hearing cheering crowds from his home. ‘‘It grabbed me by the heartstrings,” he said about the stadium. He became a regular there, watching Eugene’s minor league team, the Emeralds, also known as the “Ems.”
Others said that because of the wooden bleachers, the crack of a ball off the bat, in one of the oldest minor league baseball parks in the country, made a sound like no other.
The Ems were a minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and played there from 1969 to 2009. They left for greener pastures, or specifically, greener artificial turf, moving to PK Park in 2010 to share that field with the University of Oregon baseball team.
After the Ems moved out, the owner of the Civic Stadium property, Eugene School District 4J, put the stadium up for sale.
Volunteers gear up
Hebert and many others went into action, drumming up support and raising the initial funds to try to save the stadium. And “The Turtle” helped. That’s what he called his green 1961 International van that they covered with banners to tell the Civic story.
Of the purchase offers it received, a 4J committee recommended the one from Fred Meyer: $360,000 per year to lease the land for 20 years, with an option to buy it at the end of that period for an estimated $10.2 million to $11.2 million.
How could the volunteers compete with an offer like that?
And many people were opposed to the volunteer group’s purchase anyway. Some wanted the convenience of a Fred Meyer store nearby; others were skeptical of the volunteers’ ability to raise much money. Purchase by a nonprofit meant it would not pay property taxes. The slow pace of fundraising initially may have also given the skeptics reason to wonder.
Derek Johnson’s family owned the Eugene Weekly, and he and his dad, Art, were key players. “The hardest part of the process was raising dollars to buy the property,” Derek Johnson said. “We had about four or five months to raise the money. We had to put together a team, flesh out the concept, produce written and graphic materials.”
Eventually, a team coalesced to help out with donations and organizational skill. Save Civic Stadium handed the torch to the Eugene Civic Alliance (ECA). The alliance raised the money, $4.5 million, and on April 27, 2015 purchased the stadium and property from the school district.
Their plan was to modify the old grandstand and build a multifaceted athletic complex. Teams could play many sports there, including soccer, football, baseball, and lacrosse. The nonprofit group viewed the Eugene-Springfield area as being short of public athletic fields compared to other towns.
At the time of the purchase, the alliance executive director, Nancy Webber, insisted on getting fire insurance. But the group had no money. So she went to a local businessman and asked if he would pay the premium, which he did.
Good thing, because only 63 days after the purchase, the stadium burned to the ground.
Bev Smith, a board member of the Alliance, arrived at the site of the fire and saw other board members and board chair Jon Anderson. “He walked right up to me, smiled, and said, ‘Well, I guess it’s on to plan B,’” Smith said. “There was never a thought that we would abandon the project.”
Kidsports fills the void
What ended up on the spot of old Civic Stadium is not very different from what the alliance originally envisioned. What stands there now is a multipurpose turf field for soccer, football, Ultimate Frisbee and more. A fieldhouse has courts for volleyball, pickleball and basketball.
The total campaign has now grown to $48 million and most of the construction is done, with the grandstand to be finished this year. That would not have been possible without the support of thousands of people.
Some of the early leaders of the effort to save Civic have passed away, including Nancy Webber, and both Art and Anita Johnson.
Webber, who had insisted on buying fire insurance, also had the idea of marking the site of the original Civic Stadium pitcher’s mound, home plate and bases on the turf field.
Derek Johnson said his parents were thrilled to find out all the different ways it was being used — for class reunions, Eugene Concert Choir, all kinds of sports and activities.
“They got to go to several events at Civic Park once the fieldhouse was completed,” Johnson said of his parents. “They loved it, loved that we overcame a lot of skepticism and doubt and showed what could be done.”
