Alga Norte Community Park Grand Opening Celebration is Jan. 11

The community is invited to a grand opening celebration of the new park, on the northeast corner of Poinsettia Lane and Alicante Road just east of El Camino Real, Jan. 11, 2014, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  But the park is scheduled to open to the public in late December, as soon as the finishing touches are done and the construction fencing comes down.  To learn more about the park, click here.

“With construction almost done, Parks & Recreation Department staff are kicking into high gear, getting new programs ready for the public and running through all the system checks,” said Chris Hazeltine, director of the City of Carlsbad Parks & Recreation Department.  “Not only is this new park beautiful and state of the art, it’s giving us a chance to offer fun new classes, camps and clinics throughout the year.”

To make opening day possible, construction workers are methodically checking items on their to-do list as they complete each task. The playground, aquatic center building, fitness room, locker rooms and concession stands are complete.

The park’s aquatic center includes a 56-meter competition pool, 25-yard 12-lane instruction pool, warm water spa for adults and spray ground for children. Filling the pools will help cure the plaster on their walls. The pools will be used in early December for classroom training for lifeguards.

In addition, many park components are mere days away from completion. For example, the off-leash dog park, with areas for large and small dogs and a dog training area, has received trees and shade canopies along the perimeter. Nearly all the park’s paved walkways are finished.

The lighted full basketball court and half basketball court will soon undergo their finishing touches, and the irrigation system beneath the natural turf ball field is in and soon the natural sod will be laid. The two synthetic turf ball fields are nearly complete.

Crews are moving construction equipment off the grounds and will soon remove the office trailers. When that is complete, workers will prepare the soil and sod the construction staging area.

Outside the grounds the city is adding bicycle lanes and improving lanes and surfaces on Alicante Road to make Alga Norte Community Park fully accessible to all users.

Starting Dec. 11, members of the public can sign up for private and group swimming lessons, water fitness classes, skate boarding lessons, dog training classes and other new programs offered by the city, and they can reserve the parks many picnic areas for birthday parties and other events.  The city is also debuting a new online registration system at www.carlsbadconnect.org, making class registration fast and easy.

When completed, the 32-acre park will be the most environmentally friendly park in the City of Carlsbad. Read about the park’s many green features here.

The city broke ground on the park in June 2012; the project is on schedule and has kept within its $40 million construction budget. T.B. Penick & Sons is the general contractor. Kitchell is handling construction management, and Wimmer, Yamada and Caughey is overseeing design compliance.

–City of Carlsbad