Civita Park, a 14.3-acre, $20 million pastime getaway opening Saturday, is a neighborhood park that more than 20,000 Mission Valley residents have been awaiting for decades.
A decade ago it was a sand and gravel quarry, a brownfield carved out of the northern slopes of Mission Valley over the past 80 years.
Today, it is a place for concerts under a cloud-like amphitheater stage; a series of trails sporting lifelike bronze rabbits, two cats and a French bulldog named Dumpling; play fields and basketball courts; a community garden with 38 plots waiting to be doled out to do-it-yourself backyard gardeners; a waterfall and man-made creek; a military tribute plaza; and coming in the next phase, rock and climbing walls, specialty gardens; a recreation center; and a museum dedicated to Mission Valley history.
“One of the biggest motivating factors of our team was to make the Grant family proud of us and proud of the park,” said Tom Sudberry, whose Sudberry Properties won the competition to redevelop the 225-acre mining site bought by Franklin Grant and his wife Alta about a century ago. It is located north of Friars Road between Mission Center Road and Interstate 805.
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