The Escondido Creek Conservancy will celebrate the opening of the new Plaza Del Arroyo pocket park along the Escondido Creek Trail at Evan’s Tires 510 North Broadway location on Saturday, July 12th at 6:30 p.m. This project was recently awarded the The Jack Raymond Civic Engagement Leadership Award by the Escondido Chamber of Commerce. The ceremony will be attended by representatives of the Escondido Charitable Foundation who provided a grant that funded the majority of the project.

Plaza Del Arroyo is the second public/private partnership along the Escondido Creek trail, the first being the pocket park at North Juniper Street that was created in March, 2011. These parks are part of an ongoing series of community efforts to bring to life the vision of the City of Escondido and a team of landscape architect students from Cal Poly Pomona. In 2010 the students completed a comprehensive study of the Escondido Creek through the City of Escondido.

“We are delighted that the Chamber of Commerce has recognized this project with an award. Rethinking the community’s relationship to the creek creates an opportunity for the City and it’s residents to revitalize the seven mile creek trail both economically and environmentally,” said Katie Ragazzi, Chair of TECC’s Reveal the Creek committee. “These creative improvements will help transform the Escondido Creek trail into a vibrant 100-acre linear park linking natural open spaces around the city, and improving pedestrian access and safety.”