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The Council Bluffs Community School District is publicly unveiling its campaign to raise $13.7 million to completely renovate the Council Bluffs Stadium near North 18th Street and Avenue G, home to both the Lynx and Yellow Jacket football, soccer, baseball, softball and track programs.
A public hearing will be held Tuesday evening before the school board is asked to vote on soliciting bids for the first phase of the project – building a new track with synthetic turf for the football field, which could also be used for soccer.
The cost of the first phase is estimated to cost $2.3 million with the goal of finishing work before the Aug. 28 football game between Thomas Jefferson and St. Albert high schools
Subsequent phases of the project would improve parking, lighting and the soccer, baseball and softball fields. An entryway off 16th Street would be added along with the existing entrance off Avenue G.
The Tucker Career & College Readiness Center would remain part of the complex, along with Wilson Middle School and Pirate Cove Water Park. But the plans would require removing 18 houses from the neighborhood, with the improved complex having a larger footprint.

Including an investment of $5 million from the school district, between $11 million and $11.5 million already has been pledged. Bruckner said a “stretch goal” is to hit $15 million, which would possibly allow the district to expand artificial turf, add parking and upgrade scoreboards.

Bids on the second phase should be approved by this summer, Bruckner said. No work can start until competitions finish in the summer, and the goal is to finish upgrades to the fields by August 2016 so they are ready for the upcoming athletic seasons.
A third phase would be making the project “transformational,” Bruckner said, by adding another entry to the facility to “make a statement” on 16th Street, connecting the athletic complex and the adjacent Wilson Middle School to the area around the Lakin Human Services Campus.

The $8.7 million project includes a new locker room facility, with a training room, officials’ room and storage. A new concession building will feature shaded seating with lights that can be colored to match the Council Bluffs school competing at the facility.
A new ticket booth and donor plaza are part of the second phase, along with a press box and concession area for softball.
The softball fields will be reoriented slightly, with field improvements for soccer and baseball also planned for the second phase. Parking lots, roadway and other areas on the property will be renovated as well.

The largest individual gift in the history of the Council Bluffs Community School District was announced this morning in front of the district’s teaching staff at a back-to-school pep rally.
Gale Wickersham, a 1967 graduate of Abraham Lincoln High School and owner of Wick’s Truck Trailers Inc. in Omaha, has donated $1.25 million to the Council Bluffs Athletic Complex, which is putting the finishing touches on its first phase of renovations.
Superintendent Martha Bruckner said the gift, the largest non-institutional donation ever received by the school district, will result in the complex and the football stadium being named in Wickersham’s honor.

Today’s announcement raises the total collected so far to about $14.6 million.
The campaign’s goal stands at $15.2 million, although Bruckner cautioned that bids have come in higher than anticipated, so the final needs for the project could climb a little higher. The school board will discuss the bids for the next phase of construction at its Tuesday special meeting.