Restroom structure coming to Wilson Mini Park

Wilson Mini Park, often frequented by socializing elders and their grandchildren, will be getting its own restroom structure following a unanimous City Council vote on Tuesday.

The goal of the project is to make visiting the park more convenient for its large collective of daily visitors, said Councilman Vartan Gharpetian.

“Our constituents were asking for a bathroom because most of them are elderly people and every time they want to go to the restroom, they have to go home and if their grandchild wants to use the restroom, they have to go home, as well,” he said. “This is a matter of convenience … It’s a quality-of-life issue to me.”

Wilson Mini Park is located at 1101 E. Wilson Ave., and its picnic tables are often packed with senior citizens throughout the day.

It’s known as a “passive park,” meaning there are no sports activities, only space and furnishings for sitting and relaxing.

The council’s vote allocates $224,250 for the restroom structure, with separate areas for men and women, said Roubik Golanian, the city’s public works director.

The contract was awarded to ARC Construction Inc., which will start construction in October and the structure is expected to be completed by the end of the year, Golanian said.

The restroom will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day — the same as the park hours — and it will be cleaned daily, he said.

The project is being paid for through the city’s development-impact fee fund, which was paid into by the developers of downtown mixed-use developments as one of the stipulations after gaining approval for their projects.

The restroom structure is one of the first efforts, along with shade structures at Maple Park, to be paid for with development-impact fees.

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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian