City celebrates park renovations

City officials and community members gathered Thursday to celebrate the groundbreaking for renovations to one of the city’s oldest parks.

The city acquired the 3-acre Griffith Manor Park in the San Fernando corridor in 1937, and it hasn’t undergone a major renovation since the 1970s.

The City Council last year approved a $3-million renovation plan that includes a 2,400-square-foot community building, new restrooms, lights, irrigation systems, a lighted basketball court, benches and picnic pavilions, as well as an expanded parking lot and playground.

The project will also have a historical aspect with the community building design based on an old-fashioned airport hangar that reflects the Glendale Grand Central Airport of the 1920s.

Residents are awaiting the reopening of the park, which has been closed since last summer to accommodate construction on a number of major public infrastructure projects.