By month’s end, a refurbished 1.2-acre park in Fullerton, closed for more than 20 years, will reopen and connect with a newly constructed extension of a nearby trail.
New amenities in Union Pacific Park include an upgraded bike and pedestrian trail that will link to the half-mile extension of the Union Pacific Park Trail, which opened in December.
The trail project, which transformed the once blighted Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way into a walking and biking path, included the planting of 176 trees, lighting and other upgrades.
“A lot of people are using it,” said Edgar Rosales, senior administrative analyst with the city. “We’ve gotten a lot of nice compliments and nice words about it.”
When the two segments connect, the trail will be roughly a mile long and run east-west from the transportation center to Independence Park.
The $2.3 million cost to construct the trail got help from a $1.77 million grant from the state Urban Greening Program, with the remainder coming from the city’s park dwelling fund, a pool of collected fees paid by housing developers and earmarked for parks and recreation projects.
One of the final upgrades to Union Pacific Park is a new 3,500-square-foot playground structure that was constructed in September by volunteers through a partnership with KABOOM!, a national nonprofit that helps build playgrounds in underserved communities.
Along with the playground and trail, amenities to the park include pickleball courts, basketball court repairs, a picnic area and a community garden.
Situated along West Truslow Avenue, just south of the rail line, west of Harbor Boulevard and adjacent to the Fullerton Transportation Center, the city purchased the property in 1998 for nearly $1.3 million and spent another $1.2 million in 2003 to convert it into a park.
But soon after the conversion, the city was forced to close the park when polyaromatic hydrocarbons, commonly known as lampblack, were found in the soil.
A dispute between the city and Southern California Gas over the plan to remediate the contamination led to a lawsuit filed by the city against the gas company.
The parties reached an out-of-court settlement, requiring the gas company to give $800,000 to $1 million to the city to pay for the cleanup.
The soil has since been fully remediated and in 2011, was declared safe for public use by the Department of Toxic Substances, clearing the way for renovations, but a lack of funding kept the process from moving forward.
The City Council, in 2024, approved the final concept and plans for the Union Pacific Trail project, voting unanimously to move forward with the updated design for the upgrades and trail extension.
In May, the council approved the contract with KASA Construction to begin work on the trail.
While no definitive plans are in place, Rosales described long-term ambitions to further extend the trail to the Hunt Branch Library and potentially with other city trail loops.
Such projects would require more grant funding and an agreement with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, owners of the east-west tracks through Fullerton, Rosales said.
“We’re working with the railroad company to try to either have them give us the land or maybe sell it to us since they’re currently not using some of it,” Rosales said. “But I think they’re just trying to keep their options open for now.”