MacArthur Park was designed as a mental respite from urban life, but in recent years it has become known as a homeless gathering place, an open-air illegal drug market, and a magnet for gang violence and crime.
Los Angeles officials this week announced a $40 million project at the park that aims to turn rainwater into drinking water — and perhaps even improve the park’s bad reputation. The project will also include new landscaping, walking paths and other features to enhance the appeal of the location as a park.
“We know that MacArthur Park faces real challenges, and those challenges are the result of underinvestment in infrastructure, public health and basic services,” Eunice Hernandez, the City Council member who represents the area, said Wednesday at the unveiling of park plans. “But what we are doing now is different.”
The MacArthur Park Lake Stormwater Capture Project calls for the construction of a water treatment system that will be able to turn rainfall into drinking water — about 9 million gallons annually, or enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 14 times, Traci Minamide, interim general manager and executive director of the Los Angeles Sanitation Department, said at a Wednesday press conference.
The project will include a pedestrian bridge, updated walking paths, native trees and landscaping for shade, seating areas and an ornamental water feature. Board of Public Works Commissioner John Grant said at a news conference that the stormwater system will clean 244 acre-feet of stormwater a year and 10 tons of sediment before it hits Lake MacArthur or downstream Ballona Creek.
A rendering of the MacArthur Park Lake Stormwater Capture Project, which will add trees, walking paths and a water feature to the park. Construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2028.
(Office of Council District 1 Eunice Hernandez)
Grant said, “This lake has seen it all. It’s absorbed it all; runoff, pollution, and the years when this neighborhood wasn’t first on anyone’s list.”
Hernandez said the project is scheduled to be finished in late 2028 or early 2029, a decade after funding for such projects was established by Measure W in 2018.
Measure W imposed a parcel tax of 2.5 cents per square foot on “impervious space” in LA County for the construction of critical water infrastructure. The measure raises approximately $285 million annually for such stormwater projects, Its website said.
Maria Lou Calanche, one of the candidates challenging Hernandez in the June 2 primary election for the 1st District Council seat, said it’s OK to improve the aesthetics of the park, but the city needs to make it safe for people to go there first.
“The city’s priorities are wrong,” Callanche said. Although she supports the project, Calanche said serious efforts should have been made before then to clean up the park and treat the people with mental health and drug problems who congregate there.
Hernandez said the city has taken steps to improve conditions at MacArthur Park, including deploying street medicine and overdose response teams and removing more than 24,000 bags of trash within a half-mile radius of the park in 2025.
The LA Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners voted to approve the concept last year, Construction of a $2.3 million iron fence around the property to address public safety issues.
Some people have opposed the fence, saying it will close the park and make it more difficult for residents to visit and provide outreach services to homeless people in need.
When asked about the status of the project, Recreation and Parks General Manager Jimmy Kim wrote in an email that “we are still working on our process.”
On July 9, 2024, the first phase of the “Reconnecting MacArthur Park” project was announced at the park. This first phase will study the feasibility of permanently closing Wilshire Boulevard (pictured), which bisects the park, to vehicular traffic in favor of an “open streets” concept.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
