Ocean View School District debuts Park View Park
Park View School, which opened in 1969 in Huntington Beach, was so named because it offered a view of Murdy Park to its south.
The K-8 school on Tunstall Lane closed in 1988 due to declining enrollment and was demolished earlier this year, but Ocean View School District decided to keep the property and develop acres of open space.
The result is Park View Park, which had a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday afternoon featuring district Supt. Michael Conroy, OVSD Board of Trustees President Gina Clayton-Tarvin, Mayor Barbara Delgleize and Planning Commissioner Oscar Rodriguez.
“The vacant school attracted a variety of unsavory characters,” Clayton-Tarvin said. “Neighbors had to deal with drug users, unhoused folks, graffiti and more. The school had really become a blight on our neighborhood and on the entire Huntington Beach community. But, that is not where this story ends. The Board of Trustees made a bold decision. Rather than sell this property for a hefty profit, we opted to revitalize this neighborhood for our community.”
Clayton-Tarvin noted that the site is currently surrounded with the highest-density zoning in the district boundaries.
“This green space is a nice complement to the [Ocean View Little League] sports fields that are housed next door, and of course Murdy Park,” she said. “Green space is a precious resource in our city, and I’m very proud that my fellow board members and I made the decision to put our community above other interests.”
Delgleize stressed the importance of having parks, with almost 80 parks located in Surf City.
“Parks make life better, that’s our saying here in Huntington Beach,” she said. “Huntington Beach has worked hard to solve a lot of problems, and having open space is sometimes very challenging. So I do applaud the school district for doing that. You still own it, so it’s not going anywhere. It’s an investment in your community.”
Jim Choate, Ocean View School District‘s director of facilities, said that Ledesma & Meyer Construction oversaw the demolition of the school. He added that the approximately nine-acre property, including the Little League fields, now has nearly five acres of green space.
Kimberlie Watt George, who graduated from Park View School in 1983, also attended Friday’s ceremony. She said she remains at work conducting interviews for a documentary on the school.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
