By Daily Press staff
There’s a reason why Santa Monicans flock to Palisades Park — it is a nationally recognized landscape.
The city of Santa Monica has announced that the renovation of Palisades Park has won an American Society of Landscape Architects honor award.
San Diego-based design firm Wallace Roberts & Todd accepted the award recognizing the work that went into the design and construction of the city’s $9 million beach improvement group project, which renovated the north part of the park and the Santa Monica beachfront from the pier south to Bay Street.
Thirty entries were submitted for the honor award, and only Palisades Park was selected for recognition by the ASLA. The beachfront part of the project also was recognized, and received a 2001 merit award from the ASLA.
This is not the first award for the project. In May, 2000, the renovation of Palisades Park won the prestigious Royce Neuschatz Award for historic landscapes from the Los Angeles Conservancy. The project also has been featured in several design publications.
Palisades Park was originally dedicated in 1892. Notable features of the 14-block-long linear green space include the Rose Garden, Pergola, craftsman-era stone gates, the senior center, and Camera Obscura. Numerous other monuments and statues are located within the park expanse.
New elements as part of the renovation include “The Beacon,” a dramatic wood-plank overlook at the California incline, the “Millennium Wall” located at Inspiration Point, the Veterans’ Memorial near Arizona Avenue (dedicated on Veterans’ Day 1999), three restroom buildings, a jogging path, and replaced fencing.
The project was funded through a combination of city and Los Angeles County Proposition A (Safe Neighborhood Parks Act) dollars, and was designed in collaboration by the San Diego office of Wallace, Roberts, and Todd, artist Jody Pinto, and architect Maris Peika. Valley Crest Landscape completed the construction improvements in October, 1999.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 19, 2001. Read the original PDF.