Val Vista to open May 1 Val Vista to open May 1 (March 19, 2004)

Contractor finishing up community park
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

The new 24-acre Val Vista Community Park is looking good, but the chain link fence is keeping the public out until the turf is ready for treading.

The grand opening is scheduled for May 1, after contractor Robert A. Bothman out of San Jose completes a list of items made by the city in October.

"You can walk in right now and it looks like it's complete," said Carlos Villagran, the city's assistant engineer who headed up the 18-month project. "What's left are medium to small items."

Some of these include irrigation sprinkler heads that are not the correct height; fence hardware that need painting; post caps that need to be straightened; fences that need wire ties to attach fabric; and eroded areas that need replanting.

"In our snack bar area, they have to redo some of the domestic water piping so our maintenance guys can get to the pipes right away," added Villagran, "so somebody can walk in there without walking into spider webs of pipes. The plans showed it neat and straight."

"They should be 100 percent done," he said. "They keep telling me they are shooting for the end of March."

He said this last-minute list of items to be redone is typical. "Some I've worked with, it's a fight every day," he said, "but these guys, it was a pleasure to work with them."

The park was formerly a 5-acre neighborhood park. The $7 million renovation and expansion on the 24-acre site began in May 2002, a collaborative effort of the task force to improve the property. The new community park will include three all-weather sand-based soccer fields; an inline skate park and a roller hockey rink; play apparatus with a climbing wall and water play area; community gardens; lighted pathways; and generous landscaping.

Access to the parking lot will be via a bridge from Johnson Drive, next to the Dublin San Ramon Services District water treatment plant.

Ballistic United Soccer Club donated $500,000 to the city, the result of 30 years of fundraising, for lighted sports fields at the renovated park.

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