By Shawn Raymundo
Pico Park will be temporarily closed for maintenance while the city reseeds the grass and completes other capital improvement projects, the city of San Clemente announced on Tuesday, Oct. 22.
According to Assistant City Manager Erik Sund, the city is currently working on a handful of renovation projects that will keep the park closed for roughly 30 to 45 days.
Such projects include reseeding the park’s grass, making capital improvements to the children’s playground, or “tot lot,” as well as to the restroom.
The park, located across the street from the city’s temporary homeless encampment, has seen a rise in homeless activity, the city recently acknowledged.
Call logs from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department have also shown a sharp increase in reported incidents at the park since September, when the city limited the Pico homeless encampment to only those with ties to San Clemente.
Sund said the plans to reseed the grass and upgrade the tot lot were already in the queue of the city’s list of projects to get done this year. The improvements to the bathroom, as well as the shade structure and general landscaping, were late additions.
“Some of the projects were already in the queue to get done this year,” he said. “Obviously, when we closed the park, we noticed other things needed to be addressed as well within the facility.”
In the city’s Oct. 22 announcement on its website, the city advises residents and visitors who want to hike the trail system above the park, near Sea Summit, to park at the North Beach lot in order to gain access. “The City will post updates on the reopening of the park as more information becomes available,” the city stated.
Shawn Raymundo
Shawn Raymundo is the city editor for the San Clemente Times. He graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies. Before joining Picket Fence Media, he worked as the government accountability reporter for the Pacific Daily News in the U.S. territory of Guam. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnzyTsunami and follow San Clemente Times @SCTimesNews.
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