City, school district explore Olive Middle School site for Baldwin Park sports complex

City staff and sports‑organization leaders on Tuesday described a renewed push to develop a Baldwin Park sports complex, and said Olive Middle School emerged as a potential near‑term site for fields and facilities.

City staff described a site visit to Olive Middle School and said the district has a recently built soccer field and existing baseball/softball fields on the campus. Staff and local sports leaders said they saw significant contiguous open acreage on the back side of the site during a tour and described the discovery as an opportunity to begin work on a community sports complex.

Officials said they convened leaders from Little League, softball, soccer, judo and other organizations to solicit early feedback and that organization leaders generally supported moving forward while asking for transparency and continued community engagement. The group discussed the desire for an additional location beyond Olive — for example Elwin or Pleasant View schools — so that regional identities within the city would be preserved while adding capacity.

City staff said the next milestone is a collaborative meeting that will include two city council members and two school board members, scheduled for Tuesday, May 20. Staff said the collaborative will be asked to direct each organization’s staff to negotiate a joint‑use agreement; if both bodies direct staff to proceed, staff said the joint‑use negotiations could then be brought to the full council and school board for approval.

Staff cautioned that a formal joint‑use agreement and any negotiation terms could take months to complete, and that Olive may not be the only or final site. The new director of public works was noted as joining staff to support technical evaluations such as parking, circulation and infrastructure needs as the process advances. City staff also said community engagement meetings will be scheduled to gather design input.