Rancho Palos Verdes celebrated the grand opening of Ladera Linda Community Park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house on Friday evening, Feb. 23.
“This park is a vision and a legacy for all of us to appreciate for decades,” RPV Mayor John Cruikshank said to theapproximately 300 people who attended the event. “It’s a special day but it’s only a start.”
The park will officially open on Saturday. It will be open daily from one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset, according to city officials.
The 11-acre site boasts Pacific Ocean views, and features a nearly 6,800 square-foot community center that includes a multipurpose room, classrooms, a staff office and meeting rooms, according to a city press release.
A “discovery room” with exhibits of local flora and fauna and a look at local history are also included in the community center.
Patio and lawn areas, basketball and tennis courts, a children’s playground, tiered outdoor seating, and walking paths are featured on the park’s grounds, the press release said.
Seven parking spaces for electrical vehicle charging will be installed during the summer through a nearly $77,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant Program, according to the city.
City officials, during their speeches, recognized the contrast between the optimisim of the grand opening and the challenges RPV has been facing recently, with land movement damaging homes and the historic Wayfarers Chapel, which has been closed indefinitely.
“The sun is shining here,” Councilmember David Bradley said. “It is one of those few things recently where this is an array of good news.”
The park site was initially an elementary school. But declining student enrollment led to its eventual closure. It reopened as a park and community center in 1982, according to the city — but no real work was done to to make the former campus a true park and community center.
Work to revitalize the aging facility began in 2014.
And on March 28, 2022, the park closed for construction. The $18 to $19 million project included demolishing the original elementary school buildings, which were constructed in 1967, and then renovating the entire area.
City Manager Ara Mihranian said at the ribbon cutting that “parks are what make creativity and imagination. They do for all ages.”
“I grew up in Santa Monica,” he said, “and I remember going to Douglass Park and playing in that park on my own and and imagining and dreaming and thinking of things and experiencing a different world in my own imagination. And that’s what parks do.”