Soccer Field Pitched For River St. Warehouse

Fake grass, real goals, and striving young athletes could be the latest additions to an otherwise vacant Fair Haven waterfront warehouse — if a 50-parent plan to build an indoor soccer field gets the green light.

Kiever Pinos was one of three local coaches to pitch that project to the Board of Zoning Appeals during its latest online meeting Tuesday night.

Pinos, who has spent his downtime over the past decade teaching kids and teens how to play the sport, is the leader of an effort to turn an industrial warehouse at 90 River St. in into a year-round practice space for Latino and Hispanic families looking to build up their youth and community.

“It’s not just about sports and soccer,” Pinos told the Independent in a later interview. ​“It’s more about families getting together.” 

“The most important thing is growing community here,” another coach, Gervacio Ortiz, told the board in Spanish. He pointed to an increasing number of Latinos in the city, stating that ​“we need the space to get everyone together and working together — it’s about our families and our kids.” 

Pinos said he and up to 50 other parents have already been collectively paying $4,500 over the past few months to cover a yearly lease they signed with the owner of that warehouse, the marine dredging and construction company Patriot Marine. He said the soccer-focused group will not be able to start practicing in that space until they receive the appropriate city approvals to convert a section of the one-story building into a sports facility. 

With the representation of land use attorney Ben Trachten, Pinos is requesting a use variance to permit indoor soccer within the ​“IM Zone,” which pertains to industrial marine uses, and two special exceptions to allow for 0 parking where 163 spots and one loading space are typically required. The BZA will vote on the matter at its next monthly meeting, following a referral to the City Plan Commission, which will ultimately review and decide whether or not to sign off on a future site plan for the property.

Trachten said that the landlord of the warehouse has already promised 20 parking spaces available in lots along Poplar and River Streets to Pinos. Around 100 street spots are also available, Trachten said. Since most parents will likely just drop off their kids at practice and return an hour later, no additional parking is really necessary, Trachten said. 

The warehouse has remained vacant for years, Trachten noted, due to ​“limited uses” permitted within the industrial zone.

The ultimate vision involves unrolling turf — of which several used sheets have already been donated — to create a small soccer field that can accommodate games of ten players (five against five). 

The space will operate between 2 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Pinos said the idea is to allow groups of 12 kids, organized by age, to practice for an hour at a time throughout the week and to host games between the various teams on the weekends. 

If all goes as planned, Pinos and company will have a place to practice soccer and forge community year-round instead of just during the warmer summer months.

It’s the latest progress on free, family-focused programming that Pinos and friends have been informally organizing for more than a decade. 

Pinos, who immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when he was 15 years old, originally started leading soccer lessons after settling in New Haven as a way to keep his daughter busy and engaged while meeting and spending time with other Latino and Hispanic parents.

He and three other coaches — Manuel Alameida, Fideal Cuapio and Gerbacio Ortiz — have spent each summer for more than 10 years organizing soccer drills and games for New Haven kids ranging in ages from 6 to 16. While the coaches are originally from Ecuador and Mexico, Pinos said around 50 parents hailing from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia, among other countries, have since joined the soccer social club. 

The kids, meanwhile, mostly travel from Fair Haven, the Hill, and sometimes from Hamden to various parks around the city to practice in groups of around ten players, competing against one another in small teams and sometimes participating in tournaments against self-organized soccer groups from other towns and cities.

With time, those straightforward soccer practices have turned into deeper community building opportunities, sparking summer barbecues and parent play-offs. ​“It’s beautiful to watch all the families together,” Pinos said. 

However, ​“in the winter, we have no place to go,” Pinos told the board Tuesday. ​“We really need a space to focus.”

That’s not necessarily because Pinos is looking for more time to refine his athletes’ soccer skills. Rather, the most important thing from his perspective is getting kids off their phones and out of bed to be present with other people.

While the project is still pending approval, Pinos said that more than ten years of soccer practices have seen the same goal scored again and again: ​“All our kids — they grow together.”