'WOW' PROJECTS START GROUND BROKEN FOR KEY PALMDALE PARKS DEVELOPMENT.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - An aquatics center, a softball field complex and an amphitheater are included in plans for two ``super parks'' where officials held formal groundbreakings Thursday.

Nearly two years after Palmdale property owners agreed to an assessment to finance the parks, city officials celebrated the start of construction of new facilities.

One new park area will be on 40 acres east of the 18-acre Marie Kerr Park on Rancho Vista Boulevard at 30th Street West, and the other will be on 30 acres south of Avenue S, between 37th Street East and 40th Street East.

Each will have a swimming pool and a 16,800-square-foot recreation center. Each recreation center will have a gymnasium with a regulation basketball court and two cross courts, a dance and fitness studio with wood flooring, a youth game area, a lounge, a kitchen and a multipurpose hall that can be divided into three separate activity or meeting rooms.

City officials said they expect both projects to be completed by mid- 2005.

``These are going to be signature facilities,'' Mayor Jim Ledford said. ``These are going to be `wow' kinds of projects.''

City officials, joined by Raul Figueroa and Marsha Furman, who headed the citizen committee that pushed the parks-financing measure in 2002, opened the ceremonies at the new eastside park site at 10 a.m. and then traveled to Marie Kerr Park for an hour-later ceremony.

``The people of Palmdale have been waiting patiently for two years for this to happen,'' said John Lasagna, the city's parks and recreation director. ``What a great day! What a great day for all of us!''

About $32.3 million of the construction costs will come from a parks assessment approved in 2002 by Palmdale property owners. The levy is $36 a year on homeowners.

About $9 million will come from city fees assessed on new housing tracts, grants from state parks bonds, extra assessment income as new homes are built and other sources.

The eastside aquatic park, with a Western mining-town theme, will have three 35-foot-tall water slides, a 900-foot ``lazy'' river, a 6,000- square-foot children's water playground, a snack bar, a covered picnic area and a large grassy area for group outings.

There will be a landscaped area for community events and a 12-acre flood basin that can be used for soccer and football. There also will be space for a satellite library branch.

The expanded Marie Kerr Park will include a 7,000-seat amphitheater with a 60-foot-by-40-foot covered stage and an 800-square-foot dressing room-restroom building. Seven softball fields with lights also are planned.

To keep costs in check, the city hired C.W. Driver Contractors, a Pasadena company, to provide project management and engineering. City officials said that good contractor management has kept work on or under budget for big projects, such as work on the Civic Center.

Actual construction and development will be performed under multiple contracts, which officials said attracted more bidders and competition. They said a similar approach on the transportation center cut about $1.1 million in costs.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Officials including Palmdale's first mayor, Larry Chimbole, left, and current mayor, Jim Ledford, right, break ground Thursday for a vast expansion of Marie Kerr Park.

(2 -- color) The layout for a 40-acre expansion of 18-acre Marie Kerr Park shows an array of new facilities planned.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer