Expansion and Redesign of Virginia Park Is Discussed

Carolanne Sudderth

Mirror Staff Writer

   In the 10 years since the 2.9 acres were acquired, the Virginia Park annex has been sequestered behind a chain link fence. The public was allowed to come in only on the weekends for the Farmers Market. Otherwise, it went unused.
   The Virginia Avenue Park Working Group met on July 12, to continue discussion of integrating the parcel at the corner of Cloverfield and Pico into a revamped Virginia Avenue Park. The choices are many and the field is wide open, limited only by the $5.5 million the city has allotted to the project.
   Landscape architect Julie Eizenberg presented the group with large loose balloon drawings illustrating choices. Some showed 22nd Street being extended all the way through the park, Others, a park with “no back door.”
   Still others depicted clusters of buildings around a central courtyard, or one big building or no building at all. The choices proliferated: keep the extant building or lose it, and balance indoor space and parking against that allowed to remain grassy outdoor space.
   Parks and Rec Commissioner Susan Cloke asked, “What is it that the park doesn’t have that you would like the park to be able to accommodate?”
   Park Director Julie Dean said she’d like to add Mommy and Me, ESL, and GED programs and an extra 3000 square feet for staff, who, Dean said, “currently don’t have a toilet.”
   It was decided that a 15,000 square foot addition to the existing 5,500 square feet of the Thelma Terry Center would allow for that.
   One of the most popular suggestions at previous meetings had been the addition of a full-size gym that would accommodate a full-sized basketball court. But the youth contingent was willing to trade the gym in on the promise of a larger youth center which, they said, would offer an alternative to gang involvement by offering more diverse activities, after-school help with homework and an opportunity to mingle with older kids.
   Eizenberg said a full-sized gym had been the most asked for item, “After the swimming pool.”
   Although Santa Monica’s Municipal Pool is across the street at Santa Monica College, several women suggested (apparently not for the first time) that they would like to see a full-size swimming in the park. One woman’s determination in this regard was self-evident
   “She’ll do anything to let you know how important that is to her,” her translator told the group.
   The woman said people were reluctant to use the pool at the college. Another said that the pool’s open-use hours were limited.
   After the meeting, Karen Ginsberg, Assistant Director of Community and Cultural Affairs told the Mirror, she would look into the accessibility issue.
   No one objected to the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market continuing to “borrow” the corner acreage, but Cloke questioned devoting so much land to a Market parking lot.
   Why build a whole parking lot for something that takes two hours a week?”
   She asked Eizenberg to maximize circulation and to design for the fewest number of parking spots. and to make sure space was double-duty, capable of being blocked off and used as hard-surface play areas during the week. Eizenberg suggested that the double-duty areas be paved with D.G. (decomposed granite) which gives a bare-dirt trail feeling, but doesn’t get muddy in the rain.
   Eizenberg will further develop possible parking scenarios around the proposed expansion of the Thelma Terry and present them at the next meetings.
   The Virginia Avenue Park Working Group will re-convene on July 29 at 7 p.m. Meetings are held in the Thelma Terry Center in Virginia Park and the public is welcome. Further information can be obtained by calling (310) 458-8320.