A long-awaited community skate park in Orange now has its funding for construction at Grijalva Park.
The City Council recently agreed to take a portion of park in-lieu fees from the Irvine Company, which were dedicated to Grijalva Park as part of its Santiago Hills II development in east Orange, to construct a place for skateboarders on a portion of the half-developed park.
City staffer estimate design and construction of an 11,500-square-foot skate park and a restroom facility at Grijalva will cost around $1.5 million.
It would be the first city-run skate park in Orange, city spokesman Paul Sitkoff said. Vans for years ran an indoor facility at the Outlets at Orange, but it closed early in the pandemic.
Kids in Orange are often told “they can’t skate in certain parts of the city,” Councilmember Chip Monaco said. “But we have nowhere to direct them.”
A skate park has long been part of the master plan for Grijalva Park, dating back to 2005.
The first phase of the park’s development was finished in 2011, featuring the sports center, along with some grading, landscaping and other work to cap the former landfill on which a portion of the park sits.
In response to renewed interest from a handful of community groups to partner with the city on some of the remaining 9 acres of undeveloped land, an updated plan for Grijalva Park was put together in 2019 that included space for the skate park, along with a community theater and aquatic center.
The operators of Contenders Boardshop in Orange have been behind the push the last few years to build the park, raising money through the retail store by setting aside $5 from every shoe sale. The shop has saved up roughly $28,000 to put toward the skate park, city officials said.
Now, the City Council’s funding approval “starts everything in motion,” Sitkoff said.
Officials first have to identify a location at Grijalva Park where the ramps should go. The 2019 park plan update had the skate park sitting over the former landfill, a spot that could require “additional design and/or geotechnical investigation to conduct soil testing,” a city report said.
The latest suggest is putting the ramps at the site of the previously proposed aquatic facility just outside the edge of the landfill. The group that had originally pursued the swimming facility is no longer fundraising for the project, city officials said.
Any projections about when design or construct might kick off are “premature,” Sitkoff said. “There’s a lot of work that has to be done before we starting talking about a timelines.”
