City Council approves Alviso Adobe Community Park Implementation Plan

The Pleasanton City Council unanimously endorsed the Alviso Adobe Community Park Implementation Plan on Tuesday night, outlining a series of efforts designed to increase interest in and usage of the historic city park on Old Foothill Road.

The eight-page plan features more than 25 action steps within key strategy areas to fulfill the goals of preserving and enhancing the park as a historical site, maintaining and interpreting historical land-uses, enhancing park program and special events, and increasing community outreach and support.

“There’s a lot of work that’s been done out there, and I’ve been really disappointed in the amount of usage that it’s had over the years. I’m glad we’re doing some things that are hopefully going to increase the usage out there,” Mayor Jerry Thorne said toward the end of the 25-minute discussion in the council chamber.

“There are some good steps here,” he added about the implementation plan. “I think the marketing and public information about this will help as much as anything else. So, let’s talk it up.”

The 7-acre city park opened in October 2008 at 3465 Old Foothill Road, right off Foothill Road just south of the high school. The centerpiece is the Francisco Solano Alviso Adobe House, built in 1854 and now registered as a California historical landmark.

After the park’s first five years, city officials and residents worked to develop a strategic plan to provide the blueprint for boosting interest in the park going forward. The Alviso Adobe Community Park Strategic Plan was formally adopted two years ago this Friday.

“It feels good to be sitting here now and being able to actually continue to move the park forward,” Councilwoman Kathy Narum said. “We have some 45 parks, many of them are active. I think this is a really unique one in that it is more passive, but plenty to do, educational and really reflects on our heritage.”

A follow-up to the 2015 strategic plan, the implementation plan lays out action steps to help the city’s key strategies and goals for Alviso Adobe come to fruition. It features a mix of completed, ongoing and planned future improvement efforts — of varying scales, timeframes and costs.

Smaller projects include using STQRY.COM to create a mobile visitor experience, adding an outdoor sink to the north side of the bunkhouse, putting in more display beehives, installing more off-site directional signage, creating new programing for teens and adults, refining the docent program and exploring the formation of a nonprofit foundation to manage sponsorships and partnerships.

Larger-scale efforts include redesigning landscape and signage at the Foothill Road entryway, hiring professional help to review function of the milking barn and redesign the exhibits and displays, and moving forward with parking and other improvements in the area so Alviso Adobe can serve as the primary staging area for the new Castleridge trail on Pleasanton Ridge.

The city also plans to use $160,000 this fiscal year to construct a signalized pedestrian crossing across Foothill Road to connect Laguna Oaks Trail to the adobe, and $350,000 is proposed for design and construction of building changes and other efforts at the park in 2018-19, according to city staff.

“It’s a fabulous park … It is an important part of Pleasanton’s history,” Councilwoman Karla Brown said. “It really is an asset. It’s underutilized, and I’m hoping these improvements will really make a difference and we’ll see more residents as well as students go up to the park.”

Drafted by the Alviso Adobe Strategic Plan Task Force and city staff, the implementation plan was endorsed by the Parks and Recreation Commission in May before receiving support from all five council members Tuesday night.