by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

The 74-acre former quarry owned by Claremont McKenna College that straddles Claremont and Upland at Claremont Boulevard and Monte Vista Avenue is being readied for the construction of Roberts Campus Sports Bowl, a 50,000-square-foot outdoor sports complex that will encompass athletic facilities and venues for a number of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic programs.

“For several months, CMC has been regrading and compacting the soil in order to formally close the landfill and prepare it for development,” Claremont Principal Planner Chris Veirs wrote in an email. “This work has included punching through a dense clay layer to ensure stormwater can efficiently [percolate] into the groundwater basin in order to accommodate a request from local water agencies.”

Helena Paulin, CMC’s executive director of strategic communications and marketing, did not disclose the project’s cost or funding sources, but wrote in an email that the college was able to relocate its athletic fields to the space through a $140 million gift from CMC alumni and board trustee George Roberts. She added the sports bowl will not replace Roberts Pavilion, home to the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department.

“This shift provides space for our developing academic and residential programs, including the establishment of the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences and construction of the Bjarke Ingles Group designed Robert Day Sciences Center scheduled to open Fall 2025,” she wrote in an email.

The college anticipates hosting baseball at a new field by spring 2026, with a potential opening of all phase one venues sometime in 2027.

Bjarke Ingels Group are designing the sports bowl. The group also designed the soon to be opened Robert Day Science Center at E. Ninth Street and Claremont Boulevard. Both projects, and a “North Mall,” are part of a campus expansion called The Roberts Campus. Information is at cmc.edu. KPRS Construction Services Inc. is currently at work at the site.

Following minor revisions to Claremont’s side of things, unanimous approval of the plan’s first phase of development came at the city’s architectural and preservation commission’s June 11 meeting. The vote cleared CMC to apply for building permits and start construction, Viers said.

The former quarry site was previously used as an inert landfill by the neighboring Claremont Colleges. Development talks at the site been ongoing since 2016, the year both the Claremont and Upland city councils reviewed and approved plans and environmental impact reports for a project called the “Claremont Colleges East Campus.”

That project did not come to fruition. CMC has since acquired the 74-acre property from the Claremont Colleges Services for an undisclosed fee. In 2023, CMC floated a revised plan for the site that not only introduced athletic components, but also renamed the site “Roberts Campus East.”

“The East Campus Sports complex, which is now referred to as the Roberts Campus Sports Bowl was approved by the City Council back in 2016 as part of a comprehensive master plan by the College Consortium (now TCCS),” Claremont spokesperson Bevin Handel wrote in an email. “At the time, it was a multi-college project. CMC bought the entire 74 acres and is now developing it into the Sports Bowl.”

The sport bowl’s conceptual plan was approved by Claremont’s Architectural and Preservation Commission on July 24, 2024, and by Upland’s Planning Commission on June 26, 2024. In total, about 44 acres of the project are located in Upland, while 30 are in Claremont.

“The Sports Bowl is proposed to be located on approximately 66.4 acres of the seventy-four-acre site,” read the July 2024 Claremont staff report. “No development is proposed for three parcels totaling 7.58 acres located at the south end of the site adjacent to West Arrow Route. This land, approximately seven acres of which is located in Upland, is intended to be left vacant until future uses are identified and approved.”

Construction will take place in two phases.

The first phase will see the development of the southern 35-acres, 23 in Upland, 12 in Claremont, for baseball, softball, football, track and field, and women’s lacrosse facilities, a practice area for golf programs, buildings, bleachers, sports lighting, a two-level partially subterranean parking structure and surface lots with 790 parking spaces, a pedestrian tunnel under Claremont Boulevard, and fencing along the perimeter, according to a staff report. This phase also calls for street, vehicular traffic and pedestrian improvements along portions of Foothill Boulevard, Claremont Boulevard, Monte Vista and Arrow Route that run adjacent to the site, and for a new signal at Ninth Street and Claremont Boulevard.

Since 2016 and because most of the development is in its territory, Upland has been acting as the lead agencythroughout the California Environmental Quality Act review process. Despite minor updates and a nearly 10-year gap in the project’s timeline, the cities’ respective commissions passed an addendum to the final EIR associated with the original project in 2024. It is viewable at claremontca.gov.

“The Revised Project includes minor modifications to the previously approved Conceptual Site Plan, which constitute minor changes as they do not modify the type of uses, increase density or intensity, create new or increased environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated, or result in health and safety violations,” a June 11 staff report stated. “As analyzed in the Addendum, the Cities of Upland and Claremont found that the Revised Concept Plan will not result in any new or substantially more severe environmental impacts, and thus does not require a subsequent or supplemental EIR.”

Phase two of the project has yet to go before Claremont and Upland commissions.

“Phase 2 of development will extend the complex further north, adding competition and multipurpose fields to support CMS varsity and club sports,” Paulin wrote in an email. “This expansion will not only enhance CMC’s athletic infrastructure, but also create additional opportunities for campus development, including the potential for a new Economics building, upgraded dormitories, and additional classroom space.”