A right-of-way once used for the Waterfront Red Car in San Pedro is midway through its transformation into a public park.
The linear site, which spans the east side of Harbor Boulevard between 1st and 3rd Streets, has been stripped of passenger rail tracks to clear space for new recreation areas. Planned features include a plaza with room for food vendors, a lawn, shade structures, a children's play area with swings, exercise equipment, picnic tables, and seating.
Construction of new park on former Waterfront Red Car right-of-wayUrbanize LA
The new park space came about as part of a larger effort to redevelop the aging Rancho San Pedro public housing complex, which sits on the opposite side of Harbor Boulevard. Existing 1940s era construction could give way to a new project featuring over 1,500 homes, the bulk of which would be considered affordable. The project, which would more than triple the amount of housing that is currently developed on the 20-acre site, is also slated to include more than 120,000 square feet of community-serving commercial spaces and amenities.
New park space along Harbor Boulevard will feed into a larger network of interconnected green spaces, courtyards, and plazas within the Ranch San Pedro redevelopment, which is being led by National CORE and Century Housing.
Diagram with construction phasingOne San Pedro
The City of Los Angeles issued a notice in early 2022 that it would pursue $1.65 million in federal funding to convert the former rail right-of-way into a park, with the Harbor Department, which owns the land, responsible for soil remediation, and the Housing Department responsible for construction of the green space.
The Waterfront Red Car, a tourist attraction which launched in 2003, was intended to temporarily cease operations for 18 months in 2015 - a closure which would become permanent shortly afterward. While an initial proposal to redevelop the Ports O' Call Village in 2016 had called for restoration of the service, the streetcar was dropped from the project, which is now under construction.
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- Former Red Car right-of-way in San Pedro to become park (Urbanize LA)
