New CHS Field House Brings Energy to Athletic Programs

By Misty Cryer

The dream of a new field house at Carlsbad High School has been on the horizon for a while. With recent completion, excitement fills the campus, bringing new life to the athletic programs. Gratitude was expressed to the community for supporting projects to benefit Carlsbad students.

The kids love it, said Cale Sanders, Head Football Coach for CHS Cavemen. “It’s exciting for them. It kind of brings a new energy to the program. Everything is upgraded, everything is new, everything’s shiny, everything is awesome. It just feels like Carlsbad is pouring back into the kids, and that’s pretty cool,” he said.

Jaynes Corporation was the CHS Field House Renovation and Addition Project contractor and is also building the Performing Arts Center at the high school. A local architect firm, NSPR Architects Inc., took on both tasks. Brad Nesser, CEO and Lead Architect of NSPR Architects, and Patricia Decker, the Project Architect, provided details on the design.

The new field house is approximately 33,000 square feet, said Nesser who explained the mass of the original building was kept while enlarging it on three sides. “We salvaged some elements of the existing building, like the arched steel beams that were part of the canopy entrance of the original building and one of the rooms at the south end of the existing building. We incorporated and encapsulated those into the new building,” he said.

“We wanted to respect the original building since it was the focal point of the end of the stadium but wanted to bring it up to a modern aesthetic and complement that history,” Decker added.

When asked what was the most challenging about the design and construction of the field house, Nesser said, “Mostly the rock that the building is set on.” He said that in the C-Hill area, the dirt is very shallow before you get down to the caliche rock.

Sanders said the project was in the works before the pandemic, putting it on the back burner until about two years ago when the program was moved into portables with an army tent serving as a weight room during the renovation. With a bird’s eye view of the construction, Sanders said there were a lot of questions about it. “Finally, I can say it’s done,” he said.

“We’re super excited,” said Sanders. “It houses football, baseball, and track. It’s got a monster weight room in it. I haven’t seen every weight room in the state, but if it’s not the best in the state, it’s up there,” he said.

“We have a little indoor facility there with batting cages and spreading lanes so we can do stuff in bad weather,” said Sanders.

The facility has a state-of-the-art film room, said Sanders. “I don’t know how big that screen is—it’s huge,” he said. He described the film room as having 112 custom-embroidered seats. “It’s a really good meeting room and film room for us.”

The field house features coaching offices for baseball, track, and football, along with a coaching room. “It has really cool locker rooms for our kids. It’s broken up between varsity and freshmen—100 lockers on the varsity side and like 60 on the freshman side,” said Sanders, “It’s got plenty of room.”

When asked how the new field house compared to the old one, Sander said, “There’s no comparison between the two. The other one was built 50-plus years ago; it was just time for an upgrade.” He said, “It was well worth the portables for two years for sure.”

The Performing Arts Center at CHS is currently under construction. “It is 80% complete,” said Nesser.

“I think we have a lot of pride in being local architects who are getting to take care of our community and work in our community,” said Decker.

“We are proud to represent Carlsbad and appreciate the district allowing us to upgrade both of these buildings,” said Nesser. He said NPSR designed the original Performing Arts building in 2005. “It was the master plan for the Performing Arts Center to be on the north side of that building. It took 15 years to be able to design phase two of that project, but we’re very pleased with the results and appreciate the community’s participation