On the heels of new city parks, public beach house to break ground in ’07
CITYWIDE — With the groundwork being laid, literally, on Tuesday, Santa Monicans in two completely different parts of town can expect to have parks to call their own by the beginning of summer.
Slated for completion in May, both the new Airport Park and Euclid Park are expected to improve the quality of life for residents in their respective neighborhoods by increasing the recreational space in a city that falls well below many other communities in terms of total park acreage.
With sod being implanted into Airport Park on Tuesday, both projects are on schedule for their spring unveiling, according to officials.
Airport Park broke ground in late 2005 on 8.3 acres at the southeast corner of the Santa Monica Airport. The park is stocked with a dog park, synthetic turf field, a children’s playground, a restroom facility, picnic area and a walking trail encircling the entire premise.
Because of air quality concerns near the airport and its potential effects on park patrons, the city is currently conducting an environmental investigation, the outcome of which might determine the park hours, said Recreation and Parks Commission Chairman Susan Cloke on Tuesday.
“What we want to do is make a healthier environment for people,” said Cloke. “On the other hand, we all live in Los Angeles, and if we didn’t want to build where there was bad air, we wouldn’t be able to build anywhere in this city.”
Airport Park was a result of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan that the commission adopted almost a decade ago. That plan established a series of goals, including expanding the total park acreage in the city — currently 123 acres, excluding Airport and Euclid parks. The development of Airport Park was identified in the Non-Aviation Land Use Feasibility Study [NALUFS], which was drafted in the late 1990s.
Euclid Park, the smaller of the two parks at only 15,000 square feet, is a future neighborhood resource situated between Broadway and Colorado Avenue, amid multi-family homes and Vista del Mar, a non-profit providing support to families affected by abuse. The new park will include community garden plots and a small children’s play area. The park has been under construction since August of last year. Euclid Park was formerly a parking lot.
Once both are up and running, Santa Monica will have 26 parks, including the beach park playgrounds. A public park located on private property — at the Yahoo! complex on Olympic Boulevard — would bring the total count to 27 parks.
“There is not enough park space to meet the needs of our residents and we also do not meet what are the national standards for the amount of park space that communities should have, based on population and size,” said Cloke.
The city of Santa Monica does not follow the standard set forth by the National Recreation and Parks Association, which suggests that there should be a park about every quarter mile in town, said Karen Ginsberg, assistant director of community and cultural services for the city.
Rather than following the national standard, the city has adopted its own.
FINDING ROOM TO PARK The future looks bright, in terms of bringing in more green and recreational spaces to the city’s landscape.
In the next few years, the commission will consider adding a park to the Civic Center grounds and connecting the former Fisher Lumber site at 14th Street and Colorado Avenue to the adjacent Memorial Park.
The first public beach house in the city — 415 Pacific Coast Highway — will be breaking ground in the spring. A plan for the conversion of the former Marion Davies Estate into a community beach house gained recent approval from the Coastal Commission.
In fiscal 2007, the first beach parking lot in the city’s Beach Greening program, located at the western end of Ocean Park Boulevard, will be renovated to include a picnic area and space for bike riding and skateboarding. It is part of the commission’s long-term goals to utilize certain beach parking lots so they could incorporate parking, a small garden and recreational space.
The Beach Greening program is a way to provide sustainability to the city, said Cloke. The project will also help prevent storm runoff from the beach lot into the ocean.
“We, as a city, do not have enough park space and we all understand that we need to be the best possible stewards of the beach,” Cloke said. “Using this opportunity for recreation and sustainability is just a tremendous benefit to the city as well as to the people who use the beach.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 10, 2007. Read the original PDF.