Shalimar Park renewal project sparks different dreams for Costa Mesa’s west side
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Families celebrating a groundbreaking for the latest renovation of Shalimar Park Wednesday said it’s just the start for a community reclaiming its identity.
The remodeled park will have more space, an updated play area, LED lighting and additional safety features. It will also add a multi-use court that can be used as a small soccer pitch, a much-needed amenity in a community full of families with young children.
For the record:
11:35 a.m. May 29, 2026A previous version of this story misattributed a comment made by Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee Ashley Anderson to Kelly Brown, chair of the Costa Mesa Parks and Community Services Commission.
“You’ll see kids playing soccer in the street, putting up their own goalposts and things, making up for the lack of proper fields in our neighborhood,” said Eric Jimenez, a lifelong resident of Costa Mesa’s west side community who is the founder and executive director of Bright Youth, a nonprofit advocating for the people who live there.
Costa Mesa Planning Commissioner Angely Andrade Vallarta said the west side of the city is considered “park hungry.”
“The ratio of population to green space and park space is way under,” Andrade Vallarta said. “There’s not enough parks. In all of the west side we have Shalimar and Ketchum-Libolt, which are both being renovated at the same time, leaving us with zero.”
Mayor Pro Tem Manuel Chavez represents the district where Shalimar Park is located, and said he recognized the community’s need for more and better open spaces. He reached out to former state Sen. Dave Min, prior to his election to Congress, to set aside $1 million in state funds for the renovation. It should be complete in about six months, Chavez said.
“This is not coming out of the city’s dime,” Chavez said.
This isn’t the first time Shalimar Park has gone through a remodel, noted Lambert Higuera, Bright Youth’s co-founder, who is a lifelong resident of Shalimar Drive; he’s aware of at least three that have taken place during his time living on the street. But this may be the first time the city has actively reached out to members of the community to ask how the space might best suit their needs.
“The people that live here, the people who have grown up here, we haven’t always felt that the park has represented our interests,” Higuera said. “Of course we want our neighborhood kids to play somewhere, but it stops at around 10 years old.”
In the past, the park had become a place where teens and young adults might congregate after dark and unsupervised, occasionally drawing the attention of patrolling police. The space had also developed a reputation for gang activity.
Higuera said adding new lights and a small soccer pitch to Shalimar Park will give adults a reason to stay at the park in the evenings. He believes that should make the space safer for youth, draw less attention from police and create more opportunities for intergenerational exchange.
“If a street has a certain name there’s different connotations,” said Ashley Anderson, a member of the Newport-Mesa school board. “These are children. They deserve to have a green space they can walk to and play in...be with their community.”
Higuera and Jimenez recalled Shalimar Park as a place where, in their youth, families would gather for cookouts or basketball games, but that gradually fell into disuse. They don’t just want to restore it; they envision the site as a cultural hub celebrating the experiences, talent and achievements of their neighborhood.
The city purchased a property adjacent to the park that used to be an apartment complex. It has since been torn down, with its last three occupants either relocated into affordable housing or given financial aid for new accommodations.
Bright Youth and other members of the community hope to raise funds to build a community center. They envision a multipurpose facility where people can learn, host events, cook, store communally-used equipment and more.
“We want to highlight more of the stories that go unheard,” Jimenez said. “We have a lot of those in our community. For example, we have kids who have grown up in the neighborhood who are now Harvard graduates. We have Shalimar residents who have graduated from Stanford, as well as attorneys who still live on this street. But we don’t hear about those stories because they’re clouded by stories of violence.
“There is a lot of communal and collective beauty here that goes unnoticed, like a rose growing out of the concrete. Bright Youth is here to help transform, uplift, and care for the beauty that is the Shalimar neighborhood, and other neighborhoods just like it.”
The need for a community center is further heightened by the recent closure of the Shalimar Learning Center that had been operated by nonprofit Think Together, Jimenez and Andrade Vallarta said. The facility had been an enrichment and education center serving the neighborhood’s youth.
Residents have also raised concerns about the need for more housing in the area. Community advocates were also considering including apartments for low-income residents as part of what gets built on the currently unused spaces next to Shalimar Park.
