The City of Santa Monica Government broke ground today, August 27, 2019, on its newest sports facility, the Civic Center Multipurpose Sports Field. Slated to open in summer of 2020, the community sports field will serve Santa Monicans of all ages with space to play soccer, rugby, and lacrosse.
In tandem with the construction of the field, the City will conduct an arts-driven community engagement project to commemorate the history of the site, once the center of Santa Monica’s historic African American community known as the Belmar neighborhood.
The City will work with key community leaders, artists and Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson, a prominent historian on the history of the African-American community in Santa Monica, for this project. This group will collaborate on the development of a significant community engagement process and subsequent education strategy, with the goal of increasing awareness of the legacy of the Belmar neighborhood and the impact of the forced displacement of African American community members on the greater Santa Monica community. This will result in a series of public artworks that commemorate this history, with additional artworks to be developed for surrounding areas in the future.
This project is a part of multiple investments to the Santa Monica Civic Center. More information about projects, construction, and impacts in the area is available at santamonica.gov/civiccenter.