Improvements planned at aging MLK Jr. Park in Santa Rosa’s South Park neighborhood

Santa Rosa is reimagining what one of its oldest and most utilized parks could look like to better serve residents in the South Park neighborhood.|

Kristoc Camacho knows firsthand the impact having a positive outlet and opportunities to participate in after-school programs can have on the young people in his South Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa.

“As you grow up here, you choose a route — to go to practice after school for two hours with a bunch of athletes and parents around you that care for you, or you go and hang out with the wrong crowd,” the 26-year-old said.

Camacho moved to South Park with his family around 2002 when he was 4 years old. He came up in the neighborhood at a time when it was the backdrop of increasing gang violence.

For the young Camacho, though, soccer was his outlet.

His passion for the sport is something he now shares with the children he coaches in his very own backyard.

Camacho started a youth soccer club about two years ago that has grown to about 30 children who practice at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, which is tucked along Hendley Street, in the southeast Santa Rosa neighborhood south of Bennett Valley Road and west of the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

The club, along with an active adult league, has helped bring back a sense of community and renewed energy to the park that Camacho said was missing when he was young.

“It used to be sort of abandoned and not the place you wanted your kids to go,” he said. “This has helped change the energy in the park.”

Despite the park’s rejuvenated spirit, its physical condition remains less than ideal.

There are few lights, which make it difficult and unsafe to play in at night. There are also no functional water fountains and the park’s bathroom is outdated.

All of that could soon change, though.

Santa Rosa is reimagining what one of its oldest and most-utilized parks could look like to better serve residents.

Improvements call for upgraded lighting to make the park more welcoming, new restrooms, new play equipment and enhancements to the field. Ideas also are being floated for a possible outdoor gym or a smaller hardcourt for soccer, or futsal.

Santa Rosa parks officials kicked off the planning process with a community meeting on Saturday to gather feedback from residents and park users about what improvements and amenities they’d like to see and residents will have additional opportunities in the future to weigh in.

Renovations are being paid for through a $5.4 million state grant and construction is expected to be completed in June 2026.

Safe place to gather

The 5.38-acre park was last updated about 20 years ago and it has experienced heavy use. The play equipment, landscaping and other park amenities need to be replaced or significantly improved to bring the park up to good condition, officials said.

“The park is very, very heavily used both by the neighborhood and larger community and really needs to be freshened up,” Santa Rosa Assistant Parks Planner Emily Ander added.

An aging playground and picnic area sits beneath the shadow of mature trees at the northern end of the park. There’s a full basketball court and two half courts in the center and the field on the south end.

A paved path that circles the perimeter of the park connects the two ends.

Community Action Network of Sonoma County, a social services agency that dates to the 1960s, operates an Early Head Start program for infants to 3-year-olds and a Head Start program for 3- to 5-year-olds there, too.

The park was deeded to the city in 1965 and renamed in January 1986 in honor of King, the venerated civil rights leader. It was also a nod to the neighborhood’s history as the home of some of Sonoma County’s first Black residents and later a center for the Black community.

Today, the neighborhood is predominantly Latino and has welcomed a wave of immigrants from Central and South America.

Camacho said many of the families that live in South Park are lower income and some work several jobs to make ends meet. They don’t have the resources to enroll their kids in afterschool activities or other programs and transportation also is an issue.

Having a safe place to gather and for kids to play is critical for his neighbors, Camacho said.

“It’s everything,” he said.

New field, other renovations on tap

Plans include installing new lighting and new turf on the field, potentially synthetic turf — the first at a city park — so it’s playable throughout the year, Ander said.

Staff is discussing the possibility of regrading the hilly terrain where the playground and picnic tables are to increase visibility and make it safer.

A new restroom building is planned and a new irrigation system, benches and other park furniture will be installed.

Parking is an issue and the few spaces there now fill up quickly during matches or events. Parks staff is discussing adding angled parking along Hendley or maybe leasing parking from the fairgrounds, Ander said.

Ander said she’s heard an interest from community members who want to see more shade elements. Some want outdoor gym equipment or some type of obstacle course for adults and children to exercise outdoors and there’s an interest in transforming part of the basketball court into a futsal court.

The park hosts the South Park Day and Night Festival, which was started by Vince Harper, a beloved nonprofit worker some 15 years ago after increased gang violence rattled the neighborhood.

In addition, the park is the site of the annual Juneteenth Festival and other local events, so staff also would like to gauge if there’s an interest in building a gazebo that can host outdoor performances or include space for a stage in the design, Ander said.

Cynthia King, executive director of Community Action Network, which operates the early childhood education sites at the park, said she and her staff have heard from residents and families they serve that they’d like to see a community center.

The South Park Coalition neighborhood group currently uses one of their buildings to meet and other groups meet at the various churches in the neighborhood but a dedicated space would be ideal, King said.

King said residents also want more programming at the park.

Beyond the park, improvements also are planned along a quarter-mile pedestrian and bike path known as Newhall Trail that connects the park west to Petaluma Hill Road.

The trail has long been the site of illegal dumping and graffiti, Ander said, and staff plans to add lighting and beautify the space to make it safer to use.

Next steps

Residents will have additional opportunities to weigh in on the plans as designers craft draft concepts over the next several months.

Residents can weigh in through an online survey available through June 1 or reach out to Ander with questions or suggestions via email at eander@srcity.org. Additional community meetings are planned in August and November.

“We want to hear from the community what features at the park they use most, what they would like to stay or (have) enhanced, and what features they would like to see,” she said. “We’re excited about the possibilities.”

The plan is expected to return to the Santa Rosa City Council for consideration in January 2025 and construction is slated to start in late 2025 or early 2026.

Danny Chaparro, a longtime youth advocate and former outreach worker in Santa Rosa’s Violence Prevention Partnership said activating the park and making it more inviting will help address safety concerns and camping at the park, issues residents have been calling for more attention for years.

“It can be transformative for this neighborhood,” he said.

Camacho and others who live and work in the neighborhood hope the long-awaited renovation at the park signal more city investment in South Park, which they feel has long been overlooked — especially as the area along Petaluma Hill Road is primed for new development in the future.

“We’re really excited,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.