"This should not be looked at as a period, but as a comma," Mayor Jim Light said on July 28, standing in a park that had been a dirt lot under the Southern California Edison power lines for as long as most people can remember. "From the greenbelt to the harbor is the goal."
You can read that line as a ribbon-cutting flourish. It also works as a map. Redondo Beach's three new or refreshed green spaces this year are Bill Brand Gateway Park at Herondo and PCH, the new native-plant greenhouse at Hopkins Wilderness Park, and the stormwater dig now underway at Fulton Playfield. None of them is finished, and the city has said so. Seen together, they look less like three projects and more like the first visible pieces of one: a chain of native habitat, grown locally, linking spots that already exist on the bluff and in the hills.
That changes how a fall walk here works. Some pieces are open now, some are fenced off until December, and some are still only a plan.
A Dirt Lot Under the Power Lines, Now Planted
Bill Brand Gateway Park sits at the southwest corner of Herondo Street and Pacific Coast Highway. Phase one covers about 2.2 acres, with a pedestrian path, native plants and benches. That's roughly half of a 5.1-acre site. The Daily Breeze called it the city's first new green space in at least a decade.
The planting is young. The native plants went in less than six months before the July opening. They're watered with reclaimed water from the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in El Segundo, and the path is granite, lined with benches and cobble swales. Walk it now and you're seeing a garden in its first season. Whatever it looks like next spring will be new to everyone.
The view is still on hold too. From the park there's a narrow glimpse of the ocean, and much of it is blocked by the old AES power plant building, which city officials say they hope is temporary. Deirdre Brand, the late mayor's widow, described the larger idea at the opening. The long corridor of power lines would become a walking path, and you would "enter through this gateway with a native habitat park."
Here is what's settled and what isn't:
- Open now: the phase-one path, benches and native planting near Herondo and PCH.
- Promised, no date: a permanent sign to replace the temporary wooden one put up at the opening.
- Hoped for, not scheduled: extending the park down to Francisca Avenue and turning the AES site, a bit farther west, into green space.
Opening coverage gave no hours and no parking directions for the park. Anyone driving over should plan for that.
Light said the new landscape adds to Redondo's "islands of native habitat," naming two that already exist: Wilderness Park and the Esplanade Bluff Garden. Both sites changed this fall.
The Plants Have to Come From Somewhere
Two months after the Gateway Park opening, the South Bay Parkland Conservancy cut the ribbon on a greenhouse at Hopkins Wilderness Park on September 29. Its job is to propagate native California plants for restoration work, including plants that support the endangered El Segundo blue butterfly.
This greenhouse is the reason the corridor idea holds up. Mary Simun, the conservancy's vice president, biologist and educator, put the problem plainly at the ceremony: "There simply aren't enough native plants being grown in the region that have local established genetics to provide for the needs of so much of the restoration work." A city that wants a native garden running from the greenbelt to the harbor needs a steady supply of the right plants, and that supply is now being grown in a city park.
It took a long time to get here. Eagle Scouts built the foundation and two propagation tables about two years ago. Jacob Varvarigos, the conservancy's director of conservation, traced the idea back nine years to conversations with Bill Petitt, a native plant specialist who died in 2021. Over almost a decade of work with the city at Wilderness Park, the conservancy has planted more than 5,000 native plants with more than 7,000 volunteer hours.
Like Gateway Park, the greenhouse is open but not finished. Another Scout project will put fencing around the greenhouse and nursery. Signs pointing visitors to it from the Wilderness Park entrance are planned. Rain from the greenhouse gutters will be routed into a native garden. The conservancy says volunteers will be trained for nursery and habitat work, and that guided tours and a nearby educational trail are planned. It hasn't posted walk-in hours for the greenhouse itself.
Hopkins Wilderness Park is at 1102 Camino Real. From Labor Day to Memorial Day it's open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and it's closed every Wednesday. Individuals and families get in free. Dogs and bicycles aren't allowed, which matters if you're planning a dog walk.
The Bluff Garden Is Finished. Its Neighbor Still Needs Hands.
The Esplanade Bluff Garden, the other island Light named, is the most finished piece. It's a native garden planted for pollinators, on the ocean side of the Esplanade between Avenue A and Knob Hill Avenue, and the conservancy invites visitors to sit and enjoy it.
The conservancy treats it separately from its Esplanade Bluff Restoration project. The garden doesn't need maintenance volunteers right now. The restoration is ongoing and does. The conservancy offers restoration volunteering year-round at Hopkins and on the Redondo Beach bluffs. It also runs monthly nature walks aimed at children that can cover birds and pollinators, and it sends visitors to its calendar for dates. Plants grown at Hopkins and planted on the bluff by volunteers is the clearest picture yet of how this chain is supposed to work.
A short walk north on the Esplanade takes you to the Redondo Beach Historic Library at 309 Esplanade, which reopened August 6 after a year of renovation by its operator, Made by Meg. Its main entrance is inside Veterans Park. It runs mainly as a bookable event venue, and Made by Meg provides the food and drink for events. For the public, the way in this month is a scheduled event. On Thursday, October 29, "Sunset Comedy: Halloween" opens with a cocktail hour on the West Lawn at 4:30 p.m., then a costume contest at 6:30 and the show at 7. Tickets are open to the public, food and drinks are sold on site, and no BYOB is allowed. Fall open houses on Sunday, October 18, and Monday, October 19, run 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., require an RSVP, and include tours of the building's three floors of ocean views.
Why Fulton Playfield Is Behind a Fence
The one familiar spot that's off-limits this fall follows the same logic. Fulton Playfield's closure is officially the "Multi-Benefit Infiltration Project." Griffith Company is upgrading the detention basin owned by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, installing drywells in the park and along Earle Lane, and adding bioretention planters and landscaping in the park and along Rindge Lane. Put simply, the field is being rebuilt to soak up stormwater and plant the edges. That's the same rain-to-garden idea the conservancy is building next to its greenhouse, at the scale of a public park.
The closure comes in phases, and the city has published them:
- Through November 30, 2026: the park is fully closed.
- October 5 to November 5: Earle Lane is closed between Hall Court and Fisher Court.
- December 2026 to January 2027: the park partly reopens.
- February 2027 to April 15, 2027: the park is fully open.
- April 16 to June 3, 2027: the park fully closes again for detention basin work.
Crews work 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. Work stops March 10 through April 15 to meet the county's rainy-season deadline, and the project should be finished in summer 2027. Anyone who uses Fulton for weekend games has a usable window in early spring and a second closure to plan around after that.
A Fall Route Through the Open Pieces
Three of the open pieces fit into one Saturday this month, and the fourth fills a Thursday evening at the end of October:
- Hopkins Wilderness Park, morning. Arrive after the 10 a.m. opening, and remember it's closed Wednesdays. Find the new greenhouse; directional signs haven't gone up yet.
- Esplanade Bluff Garden, midday. Sit among the pollinator plants between Avenue A and Knob Hill Avenue. If restoration volunteering interests you, check the conservancy's calendar before you go.
- Bill Brand Gateway Park, late afternoon. Walk the granite path at Herondo and PCH while the planting is still in its first season, and look for the narrow ocean view past the AES building.
- Historic Library, Thursday, October 29. Spend the evening at the ticketed Halloween comedy night, starting with sunset on the West Lawn.
Fulton Playfield returns in pieces from December. Gateway Park's permanent sign, the greenhouse fencing and the extension toward Francisca Avenue don't have dates yet.
New parks and gardens like Gateway Park and the bluff garden change daily life on the streets around them. If you live close to one of these spaces and want to understand how it fits into your home's value, Gayle Probst is happy to set up a complimentary market consultation or a free home valuation.
