PALMDALE – A renovation project to improve the recreation fields at Pelona Vista Park is more than halfway through completion, Palmdale city officials announced Tuesday.
“We’re very pleased with the progress so far,” said Communications Manager John Mlynar. “We’re all looking forward to having fresh new playing surfaces in a few months as Pelona Vista is one of our most highly used facilities in the city.”
“A side benefit to the project is that we’ve been able to reduce the amount of water used on the grounds by 26.2 percent in June and 38.8 percent in July,” Mlynar said. “We’re just focusing on the new turf and we’ve cut back watering in other areas of the park.”
Groups who were using the fields for games and practices are using other park sites during the renovation.
The scope of the project has included turf removal, re-grading, adding moisture retention soil and amendments, irrigation replacement with water saving technology, and a new grass blend appropriate for the climate and play activity. The project also includes general facility upgrades such as stairwell and walking trail improvements, installation of split rail fencing to improve the cross-country trail and improvement to the irrigation backflow, flow sensor and master valve.
The contractor for the project is Rich Meier’s Landscaping, which was awarded the contract at the April 1 Palmdale City Council meeting. The project began in April.
The renovation will cost $400,000 and is being funded through the Excess Fund – Cities Grant Program by Los Angeles County Regional Park & Open Space District.
For more information, call 661-267-5611.
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T says
Just Please dont demolish the bike jumps!
If anything take over that part of the road as well, and make it apart of the park.
People in palmdale that ride (bmx, mountain bikes) would love to know about the jumps that reside right across the street from the entrance of pelona. Ave R side i beleive. I think it would be a good idea.
Nikolas says
Leon,
Wasn’t the original plans for the facility to include land on the West side of Tierra Subida as well…? Or maybe that was phase 2 or 3 of the project. I could have sworn I saw a rendering in the AV Press years ago that included soccer fields on the West side of the street.
On a different topic: It’s unfortunate the City Parks staff did a sub-par job of keeping the fields at an acceptable level of quality. Every time I was there for a soccer tournament, the fields were in poor shape, with numerous bare spots and “pot holes” waiting to bust players’ ankles. From what I understand, it took quite a bit of complaining from the youth soccer leagues to get the City to allocate funds THEY ALREADY HAD but were refusing to use.
Pelona Vista was an excellent concept. A different debate is whether or not the City executed as well as they should have, especially over the last 4-5 years or so.
The Lancaster National Soccer Center has set the bar high, and has done so for the better part of 15 years. There is absolutely no comparison between the quality of the fields at LNSC and those at Pelona Vista. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the City of Palmdale will elevate the quality of their fields and MAINTAIN that quality day in and day out.
Mary says
Mr. Swain
What about us hikers who hike those huge hills – to me that is the best part of this park. I am well conditioned at age 50 because of these trials. It would be so incredible to have some beautiful flowers put up there; Hollyhocks, Cactus, etc. to add beauty to these incredible hills that we hikers climb.
Leon Swain says
I remember the very night Pelona Vista Park was conceived. It was the night of a council meeting and John Lasagna, former Parks and Recreation Director, and I were discussing in my office, next to the former City Council Chambers, how we were going to create soccer fields for the many kids that were signing up for recreational soccer at the time (late 1990s). John said “We should just use the 73-acre County Flood Control District owned property near the freeway.” I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said, “That’s a great idea!” The rest is history. The park was built in two major phases utilizing various funding sours to make it happen and it is still one of the premier and visible parks in the wonderful City of Palmdale with thousands and thousands of kids and adults benefitting from the soccer, cross-country and walking and jogging activities over the years. Great job Palmdale!
William says
Every time I turn around, there is something new and exciting being built in Palmdale, whether this park, new restaurants, sporting goods store, retail, power plant, water saving projects, transportation hub, veterans residencies, etc.
This despite a slowly recovering economy. Big companies seem to know that Palmdale is a desirable place to build new retail/restaurants, etc.
We even managed to do well conserving water during the long drought.
Palmdale is a City that works. Thank you to the Mayor, council and city staff for all the work where the results are obvious and for the work that we don’t know about yet is important.
It will only get better and better in the future. There is a momentum that will only propel further enhancements. We’ve reached critical mass which will attract even more desirable business investment.