The Cupertino Courier

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Mana Nishikata and Rio Hodges zoomed down a twisty slide at Portal Park in Cupertino last week.

Park It

The heart of Cupertino beats in its 12 parks

By Pam Marino

The springlike weather last week brought more than just the sun out in Cupertino. It brought people out of their rain-soaked homes and into the city's parks.

In one neighborhood, going to the park took on a special meaning. For the first time people surrounding Miller Avenue got to walk to their very own neighborhood park, Creekside Park. Creekside is Cupertino's 12th, and probably last, big park.

After Creekside's grand opening on March 7, people came out to the park all week, waving to one another, meeting new people, talking and playing.

"It's kind of a honeymoon period," resident Wendy Armstrong said. "Everyone is over there."

Armstrong sat on the master plan committee that spent two years planning Creekside.

"I think it's strengthening our community," she said of the new park. In the past, she said, "we haven't had a place to go."

In general, Cupertinians like their parks. In a recent city-commissioned survey, 83 percent of the respondents said they had visited a neighborhood park in the last year. Seventy-six percent had visited Memorial Park, the city's most popular.

A Day in the Park: A list of Cupertino area parks.

In 1990 more than two-thirds of residents agreed in an election to tax themselves to purchase Blackberry Farm and the Fremont-Older school, now home to Creekside. Measure T allows the city to tax phone, electric and gas bills by 2.4 percent over a 25-year period. The tax expires in the year 2015.

Residents surrounding Fremont-Older were sad to see the school go, but out of the deal they got a brand-new school--Sedgewick Elementary--in 1994 and a brand-new 12-acre park this year.

At the park's grand opening ceremony, with more than 400 people in attendance, the schoolchildren from Sedgewick dedicated a plaque in honor of Fremont-Older school. The plaque was paid for with pennies collected from the children of Fremont-Older before it was shut down in June 1994.

Creekside Park features an 800-square-foot community room, half-court basketball, two playground areas, three tournament-quality soccer fields and a pedestrian/bicycle bridge over Calabazas Creek that links the Miller neighborhood with the East Estates Drive neighborhood.

Armstrong said she is very excited about the bridge.

Residents used to have to drive down Miller to either Stevens Creek Boulevard or Bollinger Road to cross Calabazas Creek and go west to the rest of the city. Armstrong said those streets are too busy for children to negotiate on their own. Now children and adults can walk or bicycle easily over the bridge and have access to the Cupertino Library, City Hall and Wilson Park, a prime youth baseball facility, she said.

"I think it has really linked Cupertino," Armstrong said. "It's just taking down barriers."

Stephen Dowling, Cupertino's director of parks and recreation, said it cost a little less than $3 million to build Creekside, including the bridge. "We got a lot for our money," Dowling said. In addition to all the park's other amenities, the link between the two areas is invaluable, everyone interviewed agreed.

A major feature of Creekside is the soccer facilities. De Anza Youth Soccer plans to use the park as its main location for practices, games and regional tournaments. The league can use the community building for a snack bar, which will serve as a fundraiser.

"We were the envy of the soccer community all over Northern California before Creekside," said the league's Bob Joyce. Cupertino, he said, has a reputation of valuing youth sports by providing plenty of places to play. Now with Creekside, "it is awesome, it is amazing. We are unbelievably thrilled," he said.

"In most communities there is a dramatic shortage of soccer fields," he said. "The city of Cupertino is way out in front of most other communities."

Soccer, he said, continues to explode in growth, which pits leagues against one another in a grab for fields on which to practice and play. In the spring, for competitive leagues like De Anza Youth Soccer, the battle is between baseball, softball and soccer leagues. But in Cupertino, where there are 4.23 acres of park land per 1,000 residents, that's less of a problem. The national standard, set as an ideal, is five acres per 1,000 residents.

In addition to having park land, youth sports leagues have benefited from the cooperative effort of the city and the Cupertino Union School District to develop playing fields at school sites over the last several years.

With Creekside's three soccer fields, De Anza Youth Soccer can now host tournaments, with teams coming from all over the state, Joyce said. Tournaments could mean ringing cash registers, not only for the league's snack bar, but also for the city. Joyce and Armstrong speculated that visiting teams will bring cash into Vallco Fashion Park and other surrounding businesses. "It's a good deal for the city," Joyce said.

Armstrong said residents aren't sure what to expect when the tournaments start coming. She said city officials have made promises that if the parking situation gets out of hand, they will take action to limit who can park in the neighborhood. For now the residents are pleased, she said. "So far, so great."

With Cupertino nearly built out, there are no more large chunks of land for large, expansive parks. But there are opportunities for growth, Dowling said.

The city is looking to expand the Portal Park site, possibly by co-developing with the Cupertino Union School District an area adjacent to the park belonging to Portal Elementary School.

If the county area of Rancho Rinconada is incorporated into the city later this year, there's a possibility of developing a small park along Lawrence Expressway. Members of the City Council have already had discussions with Santa Clara County supervisors Jim Beall and Joe Simitian to find a way to develop the site and provide park services to Rancho residents.

Councilman John Statton said he wants to see a linear park developed along the railroad tracks at the Western end of the city. Dowling said parks along tracks are typically developed after the tracks are abandoned, which won't happen any time soon. People are already using the area along the tracks for walking and jogging, Statton said. "Let's call it what it is."

In the meantime, Armstrong is happy for what her neighborhood, and the rest of the city, has. In her speech at the park's opening, she praised Cupertino for building the park, saying it showed that youth are valued in the city.

"May it remain prized and valued by those who use it," Armstrong said. "We have a lot to take care of here, and we have a lot to enjoy."

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