San Jose: New soccer fields, clubhouse planned… – The Mercury News

Plans to redo the soccer fields and build a new clubhouse at Pioneer High School are in the early stages of discussions, according to the San Jose Unified School District.

Informal conversations have taken place in recent months between district and San Jose city officials and representatives of Almaden Soccer. If all goes well, students, Almaden Soccer members and the public someday will get to share the facilities behind the school.

Before anything can happen, though, the city needs to deed part of the property to the district so it can be developed, said district spokesman Peter Allen.

“The first consensus was to get the land deed to us so we’d have full control of the land so we can build,” Allen said in an interview. “Otherwise it would be very difficult to do it with the parcel split between the city and school district.”

The parcel in question is a “leftover piece of undeveloped land” just behind Pioneer’s general purpose field, with which it also overlaps. A couple of baseball diamonds are on it, but otherwise it’s “definitely in need of some love” and “not really being used by the school,” Allen said.

“It’s a really funky spot because it doesn’t have any right-of-way or easement,” he added. “The only way for the public to access it would be to have an easement, road or path through the school and that’s just something we can’t offer, so as a solution (the city) offered to give us the land.”

This wouldn’t be the first time the district and San Jose have partnered on a project like this.

“The city is definitely looking to expand its parklands, because parkland is so hard to come by,” Allen said. “This is similar to something we did with Allen at Steinbeck (Elementary School) near Oakridge. The city and district share use of that field there.”

Financing for the project would come primarily from fundraising efforts by Almaden Soccer. How much it’ll all cost and when construction could begin is still unknown. A timeline and cost projection should become available after the land transaction is settled.

“Right now the ball’s in the city’s court,” Allen said. “Everything we’ve heard is it’s moving forward and the city’s working on what they need to get that land transfer done as soon as possible. It’s always a process with public lands, as it should be.”

Representatives from Almaden Soccer could not be reached for comment.