PLACENTIA : City Gives $1 Million for 11-Acre Park

The city has agreed to contribute $1 million toward the construction of what will be the city’s largest sports facility and park, an 11-acre project that has been in the works for 15 years.

The $7-million park is planned at Jefferson and Alta Vista streets. In addition to a multiuse athletic field for baseball and soccer, the park will include basketball, racquetball, and volleyball courts as well as the usual picnic amenities and playground equipment.

Four batting cages and a 5,000-square-foot building to be used as a community center or gymnasium also are planned.

The $1-million contribution came from city park and development funds, said Phillip J. Soto, Placentia’s director of recreation and human services. The other $6 million will be raised through bonds to be sold this summer.

“This kind of (city) financing is really needed,” Soto said. “If we had to come up with the cash for acquisition and everything else, we’d probably be 10 years away” from opening the park.

A public hearing is scheduled in March, with completion of the facility tentatively planned for mid-1992, Soto said.

It will be Placentia’s last park because the city is “just running out of room,” Soto said. The park will serve a new housing tract planned for eastern Placentia on the last undeveloped parcel of land in the city.