VAL VERDE PARK SET FOR MAJOR OVERHAUL $1.6 MILLION IS EARMARKED FOR RENOVATIONS, SECURITY.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

VAL VERDE - The 80-year-old Val Verde Park, once one of few public recreation areas that allowed blacks in the swimming pool, is getting a $1.6 million face lift.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved renovation plans Tuesday, earmarking state and local funding for the project.

Plans call for relocating the play area and restroom buildings, renovating the ballfield, basketball court and tennis court and adding drainage, walkways, security lighting, landscaping and irrigation. Lights will be added on the two courts.

The 58-acre park is the center of Val Verde, a semirural hamlet northwest of Santa Clarita founded in the 1920s as a haven for African-Americans who were refused entry to public pools in Los Angeles. Families came to the area for weekends to enjoy the park, built by the Depression-era Works Projects Administration, and built small vacation homes there.

The county Department of Parks and Recreation expects to award a construction bid by Oct. 18, with work set to begin in November.

Plans call for renovating the existing baseball field as a multisport field and to allow for expanded sports programming.

The supervisors had originally approved a $1.1 million construction budget, but were forced to increase it because of rising construction costs. The work is expected to take about nine months, during which some facilities will be closed.

Parks officials will employ youths in the area to remove play equipment and fencing in the play area, to help demolish the restroom building and to remove the backstop and dugout fencing and bleachers on the ball field.