Santa Clarita residents now have another place to play, relax and run outside.
In honor of Santa Clarita’s 29th birthday, the city officially opened its 34th park, Marketplace Park, in Valencia Thursday.
“When we started as a city we had six and a half parks, I say affectionately,” Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste said. “We are very thrilled about this. I want to thank everyone for the hard work and dedication because this is truly a partnership.”
The park sits at the corner of Newhall Ranch Road and Grandview Drive near Real Life Church, and was built through a partnership between the city, Bridgeport Marketplace and Real Life Church.
“Real Life Church was the driving force to make this happen, to push the design, to get us to work with the city and to fund the entire park and parking lot,” said Dale Donohoe, president of Intertex General Contractors, Inc.
Rusty George, lead pastor at Real Life Church, expressed his gratitude to partner with the city to create a project like this one.
“This has been a dream for several years and finally a reality,” George said. “We want to keep doing more and more things for the community that make this great place to live an even better place to live.”
Marketplace Parks consists of 2.5 acres of open turf area, walkways, picnic tables, benches, drinking fountains and a shade structure. It also includes 170 parking spaces and an EVGo electric vehicle charging station that can fully charge a vehicle in 30 minutes.
“This park is a culmination of 14 years of work, cooperation, coordination and integration,” Donohoe said. “I can see four or five AYSO teams showing up with cones and making this a makeshift soccer field.”
Weste also believes the park will be a popular location because of its location and facilities.
“I think it’s going to be very popular for lots of events and parties,” she said. “I look forward to little concerts and maybe they’ll even show movies out here.”
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