21 Mar Bay Point Cuts Ribbon on New Accessible Playground at Anuta Park

Supervisor Federal Glover, center with scissors, cuts the ribbon on a new playground at Anuta Park alongside Ambrose Recreation and Park District Board members.

Story by Arionna White | Photos by Marcos Lopez

Bay Point cut the ribbon Saturday on a new playground at Anuta Park.

The new dinosaur-themed playground was renovated to give kids a safer place to play and to attract more families to the park. The playground is compliant with the Americans for Disabilities Act and has padding to protect kids who fall. The park also features a wide, open field for sports like soccer or football. The project had a budget of $269,000 from Prop. 68, which gave California cities grants to redevelop parks and to improve the environment and water supply and quality.

The Ambrose Recreation and Park District, which had been working to redevelop the area since 2018, spearheaded the project. 

About 20 people attend the ribbon cutting ceremony. County Supervisor Federal Glover, whose district includes Bay Point, was on hand. He praised the hard work that went into physically improving the park and acknowledged what this means for the community.

“This is a big deal,” he said. “Our parks are a sense of community where we bring our families.” 

The completion of the playground signifies the culmination of a nearly two-year process that included community input and a design process by the Ambrose Park and Recreation District Board.

Also at the ribbon-cutting were many Ambrose park district board members, who were given special thanks for their hard work, resilience, and overall dedication to the mission of building up the community one step at a time. Their names are listed on park signage to commemorate their hard work and commitment to helping rebuild the neighborhood. 

Board Member Eduardo Torres, who is a lifelong Bay Point resident, said the park is part of big changes he is seeing in the neighborhood that give him hope for the future.

“This area has been through a lot of turbulence,” he said. “(As) a kid, I grew up right around the corner, and this is the proudest I have been about this park.” 

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Kids like a young Torres and his friends used to have to walk through an unsafe area to go play at the park. Now, he says, the area is a lot better than before.

“I remember that park as a kid growing up in that neighborhood,“ he said.  “Unfortunately, over the years, we’ve seen sort of issues and not just at the park, but in the community, and it just didn’t seem to be a place where people wanted to go anymore for a long time.”

Torres said he wants this area to reflect the people that live there and to have even more work done in the park so that not only smaller kids can enjoy the play structure but also to bring sports back into the community. This would give families an opportunity to bond over a common interest: building for their children.   

“Especially in that part of Bay Point, we needed a project like that to bring families back into that park,” said Torres.

And it appears to already be working. Torres said he saw kids “crawling all over” the playground even before it officially opened.

“Every time I pass by (now), I see families and kids,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t remember seeing that type of activity at that park. And if I did, it was a very long time ago…”

Anuta Park is the second play structure in Bay Point that has been remodeled, with the first being Lynbrook Park, as part of efforts to grow a strongly knit community where not only are the children safe and protected but they are able to thrive in a beautiful environment that was built with them in mind.