Plan To Build A Park Over The 101 Freeway In LA Gets $3.59M Boost

HOLLYWOOD, CA — The Hollywood Freeway is often a parking lot, but it could become a park thanks to a $3.59 million federal grant award announced Tuesday toward the Hollywood Central Park project, which seeks to "cap" a portion of the 101 Freeway by placing a park on top of it.

Long in the works, plans for Hollywood Central Park call for the construction of a park on top of the 101 Freeway in Hollywood. The approximately 40-acre park would run from Santa Monica Boulevard to Bronson Avenue.

The grant announced this week is for "community planning activities" that will take the park "from a concept design to a shovel-ready project," according to Sen. Alex Padilla's office.

City officials last year applied for a grant to conduct a "feasibility study on the construction" of the park, according to city documents.

Information provided by Padilla's office said that the award will pay for "advancing the design, engineering, and environmental compliance of the project; environmental justice activities; and financial preparations for project construction and park operations and maintenance."

The grant was awarded to the nonprofit Friends of the Hollywood Central Park as part of a partnership with the city Department of Recreation and Parks, according to Mayor Karen Bass' office.

Patch reached out to Friends of the Hollywood Central Park and Bass' office for more information about how the grant will be used and the current status of the project.

The award is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, which aims to fund projects that help reconnect communities that were burdened by past infrastructure decisions, such as the construction of freeways that demolished homes and separated existing neighborhoods.