Baseball: No longer a dream, Hillsboro Hops' ballpark coming to life ...

HILLSBORO ? A few nights ago, K.L. Wombacher took a solo trip to the baseball stadium construction site and allowed himself a moment of reflection.

The Hillsboro Hops general manager climbed the steps of the adjoining Hillsboro Stadium and gazed down on the progress that has been made since the $15.2 million ballpark's groundbreaking on Sept. 21.

Wombacher stared at the new roof columns in place and the steel forming the seating bowl behind where home plate will be located. All of a sudden, months of details and logistics were momentarily replaced by pure childlike joy.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks," Wombacher said. "It looked like a ballpark. It's felt like a dream before this to have a brand new stadium. But it just hit me that night, 'Wow, this is for real.' You're seeing it come to life."

Wombacher beamed like a proud father on Tuesday afternoon as he joined a guided tour of the facility, led by Superintendent Adam Bonner of Hoffman Construction.

Bonner said everything is on track for the project to be completed before the June 10 deadline. The Hops, who open the Single-A Northwest League season June 14 at Salem-Keizer, will christen the new facility in their home opener on June 17 against Eugene.

Bonner is no stranger to massive sports construction projects. He headed the $227 million Matthew Knight Arena for the University of Oregon's basketball teams and recently completed the $80 million Martin Stadium expansion for the Washington State football team.

"This one is exciting for me personally because I've done football, I've done basketball, but I didn't play those sports," Bonner said. "I played baseball. Plus, it kind of rounds out the resume. Now I'm a three-sport letterman, so to speak."

Bonner spent most of the nine-month WSU project last year in Pullman, Wash., finishing on Sept. 15. A week later, he was busy at work on the Hops' ballpark. The Lake Oswego resident has thoroughly enjoyed all of his projects, but acknowledged an added sense of hometown pride to help bring baseball back to the Portland area.

"I love baseball," said Bonner, who can't wait to enjoy the fruits of his labor this summer. "Minor league is just so special compared to the pros. It's got the fan experience and the close interaction with the ballplayers."

That fan-friendly vibe has Wayne Gross itching for summer to arrive. The director of Hillsboro Parks & Recreation was given affirmation during Tuesday's tour that the community will be in for a pleasant surprise when they arrive to the 4,500-seat ballpark for a game.

"Up until now, we've just been looking at a lot of plans, so it's fun to be able to see it all actually start to take shape," Gross said. "This project is a design-build so you're kind of making decisions as you go rather doing all the work on the front end. So it's been exciting because every week or so there's a new set of decisions to be made and it continues to evolve."

Hops owner and president Mike McMurray, who moved to Hillsboro from the team's former home of Yakima, Wash., has enjoyed watching that evolution on his jogs from his Orenco Station condo to the ballpark's site.

"I'm not normally an optimist, but seeing how much progress they've made has been pretty cool," McMurray said. "You keep waiting for that big problem, but there hasn't been one. We're feeling a lot more comfortable with the timeline."

Bonner said the only hiccup has been a stretch of heavy rain, which he said cost them three weeks of work from their original itinerary. But his team worked around the weather delays and is back on track with a restructured plan. The next major addition will be roof panels, set to be in place in the coming week.

It's certainly a huge step up from Yakima County Stadium, the cozy 3,000-seat facility built in 1993 that the Hops played in when they were the Yakima Bears.

"It was a glorified high school facility," Wombacher said. "It was built very economical. It definitely served the franchise well for 20 years, but there was just no long-term future with that facility. This facility here can be expanded so we could see ourselves being here for 50-plus years."

For now, though, Wombacher is focused on the next four months. After enjoying that moment of reflection on Friday night, Wombacher is back into his seemingly nonstop role as the Hops' vice president and general manager.

"I can visualize the whole thing now," said Wombacher, amid an active construction zone as blue skies emerged from the clouds. "I'm already starting to think operationally, how we're going to run game days, on-field contests, pregame activities. My mind races a million miles a minute at this point.

"There's a lot of excitement about this now, but we also want to put out a great show. We want to nail it from Day One and have a good first impression.

"We've got to get ready because we'll be playing ball here in June."

-- Jeff Smith, on Twitter

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/argus/index.ssf/2013/02/baseball_no_longer_a_dream_hil.html

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