It was April when Rick Caruso (left), JJ Redick and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass made an announcement of a public/private partnership in rebuilding the park.
A community meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7 at the Palisades Recreation Center gym, 851 Alma Real. This meeting will be the first look that the community will have of the proposed redesign and rebuild plans for the Recreation Center.
On January 9, the large gym burned. Earlier in the fire, the maintenance center and the tennis shop at the site had also burned. Several large trees were cut, and the parking lot which had not been resurfaced since the 1950s, grew increasingly worse with the heavy DWP truck traffic after the fire.
At the beginning of April, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, L.A. Strong Sports co-founder and Lakers Coach JJ Redick and Steadfast co-founder Rick Caruso stood at the entrance to the Rec Center and announced the park would be rebuilt through a private-public partnership. That means money comes from outside sources to give city amenities to residents.
Then Caruso said, “This will be one of the greatest parks in the United States.” At that April news conference Caruso estimated that the updated Palisades Rec Center could be completed within 18 to 24 months.
Partners for the rebuilding of the park will include the Mayor’s office, Council District 11, the Department of Recreation and Parks (RAP), Steadfast L.A. and LA Strong Sports Foundation.
The upcoming meeting was announced at the Palisades Park Advisory Board Meeting, held via Zoom on September 30.
This photo was taken on Janurary 9, when the large gym eventually caught fire and then burned to the ground. In the foreground is the “small gym,” which did not burn.
MEETING RECAP: Don’t Take Away Tennis Courts
RAP General Manager Jimmy Kim was absent because of a family emergency, but Assistant General Manager Chinyere Stoneham gave his report. Tennis Courts 1 through 6 will be repaired once the Palisades High School girls’ season is over. A portable building 60’ by 60’ will be situated on Courts 7 & 8: half for the Rec Center, half for a library.
PaliHi Tennis coaches Bud Kling and Robert Silvers asked where the boys could play. The team starts practicing in January. “You’re taking away 25% of the courts by putting a library building on those two courts,” Kling said.
PAB Board President Andy Starrels told Stoneham that PAB opposed putting the building on the tennis courts, “this location is not consistent about what the board or the community wants,” he said “Community sentiment is not to use these courts for a building.”
PAB Board Member Bob Benton said, “we all opposed a spot for the library that would take away two tennis courts.” He also pointed out that once construction starts, people would have to walk past it to get to the building on the lower tennis courts.
Board Member Kambiz Kamdar said, “We’ve shown we don’t want the library on the tennis courts. None of us on the PAB Board want this. Why is RAP going against what residents want?”
Board Member Rob Weber said, “It is really important to have those tennis courts. I would strongly urge the city to use another option.”
During comment period, a community member said, “With all the empty space why can’t the library go someplace else?”
Friends of the Library President Cameron Pfizenmaier said, “City needs to find a solution. It shouldn’t be a library or a tennis court.”
Starrels told Stoneham that the right of entry to the baseball fields needed to be approved by the City as quickly as possible, because members of the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association wanted to start on repairs as soon as possible. The baseball fields will not be part of the Rec Center Rebuild.
A new playground was put in by the L.A. Parks Foundation in June. Many parents objected to the first-responder theme and wanted it changed. Stoneham said that would be addressed later.
L.A. City Recreation and Parks wants to take away the lower two tennis courts at the Palisades Rec Center.
Put it at the park entrance on the right side next to the old library before and The Big Dip. Plenty of fill around to level it out from new basements being dug.
As usual LA City is deaf to local request and desires. One of the big reasons I no longer want to live in town run LA.