On Saturday July 17, the City of Costa Mesa will hold its first public ribbon cutting ceremony in 18 months to celebrate the opening of the new Norma Hertzog Community Center and the new Lions Park Playground (Airplane Park) and add the finishing touches to the City’s Lions Park Projects.
“We are beyond excited to present this new community center and playground to Costa Mesa families,” City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison said. “The completion of this project fulfills the commitment we made to the community to create a $36.5 million, world-class campus that will be the jewel of Costa Mesa’s Westside.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. at the Norma Hertzog Community Center and conclude at the Lions Park Playground, where city officials will unveil the newly engineered Korean War-era Panther Jet.
The opening of the Community Center and Playground marks the completion of Phase 2 of the City’s Capital Improvement Project that began in June of 2017. Phase 1 included the new 23,615-square-foot Donald Dungan Library at the City’s oldest park that was opened to the public in May of 2019.
The design of both the library and community center, which was formerly the Donald Dungan Library, was completed by the Southern California-based architectural firm Johnson Favaro and the construction was managed by Costa Mesa’s Public Services Department and the Tovey/Shultz construction firm.
The new Community Center features a 330-person capacity main assembly room and 100 person-capacity conference room, upgraded restrooms and a catering kitchen. It also features state of the art technology for special events.
The Lions Park Playground features a new airplane-themed play area with swing sets, a zip line, double-duo see saws and most importantly the refurbished historic Panther Jet that has been a fixture of the park for decades.
The improvements include new restrooms and open lawn areas, modern playground equipment and rubberized surface and sand play areas. Other park infrastructure upgrades include storm drain and irrigation improvements, new site lighting, landscaping and concrete pathways.
Along with the new Donald Dungan Library, Phase 1 of the project included a one-acre park with 25,000-square-feet of programmable grass area. The facility is owned by the City and library services are provided by Orange County Public Libraries.
A total of 225 new trees have been planted in Lions Park as part of this project. Both the Donald Dungan Library and Norma Hertzog Community Center are LEED Gold Certified. Costa Mesa is the only city in Orange County that is LEED Gold Certified.