Major sports complex coming to north Fresno neighborhood. See the plans

At a long-fallow corner lot in north Fresno, a construction site has popped up that will eventually become a new sports complex for Clovis Community College athletics and possibly community use.

For years, the corner held one of the few undeveloped large lots in the area bounded by Willow, Shepherd and International avenues. The site at the northeast corner of Willow and Behymer avenues in north Fresno now has signs of site preparation and initial construction.

The new development, which sits behind the community college’s main campus, is planned as the Clovis Community College ISE Diamond L.I.F.E. Sports Complex, a multi-use facility broadly geared towards serving student athletes, though there are plans to open it to the public.

Plans to develop the complex were already underway in June 2022 when James Sewell became Clovis Community College’s athletic director. In his tenure, he has seen athletes go without a dedicated space, he said.

“We don’t have locker rooms. Our athletic training room is on the second floor of a building, so it’s gonna really allow us to operate in a much more traditional sense like a college athletics department would,” Sewell said.

Clovis Community College’s website details the amenities that the new complex will feature, including a competition soccer field, an all-weather competition track, bleachers, a press box, and more. The complex will be approximately 4075 square feet.

The sports complex was made possible in part by a $500,000 donation from Jami Hamel De La Cerda, founder and CEO of Diamond Learning Center, Inc. The complex will be named after her sons Isaiah, Samuel, and Elijah.

The total budget for the complex is $14.9 million. $10.69 million will come from campus funding and $3.5 million will come from a bond.

College students are not the only ones who stand to benefit. High school teams and local youth groups could also use the space, Sewell said.

“We want this to be a state championship level complex, so whether it’s 3C2A state championships, high school, I mean we’d love to be able to host and to open up our campus as well,” Sewell said.

Clovis Community College has 11 intercollegiate sports teams and nine of them compete off campus. The sports complex will allow student athletes on competitive teams to be at their home campus more consistently.

Sewell envisions the complex as a “nucleus” where student athletes can gather around locker rooms, team meeting rooms, and the like. “I know that they are all really excited to get the keys and to be in that complex,” he said.

The construction site’s groundbreaking occurred on Oct. 8. The college has not yet announced an official opening date, through construction is expected to finish by the end of this year. Occupancy is planned for spring 2027.

This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 7:30 AM.