The City of Santa Monica will hold the grand opening of Airport Park on Sunday, April 29, It’s the first new park to open in Santa Monica in 24 years.

Scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m., the community party will feature a performance by the Belle Air Brass, food from the two airport restaurants, Typhoon and the Spitfire Grill, soccer on the three-acre synthetic turf field, and a dog obedience demonstration near the off-leash dog area.

The 8.3-acre park is located on Airport Avenue, on the south side of Santa Monica Airport about two blocks west Of South Bundy Drive.

The park is an element in the 20-year, $142 million Parks and Recreation Master Plan to improve and expand the city’s open space system, The plan was adopted in 1997.

The park’s site was previously used as a shuttle parking lot for Santa Monica Community College and car dealer storage.

The park features a soccer field, a children’s playground, picnic areas with six BBQs, off-leash dog park planted with fragrant ground cover and shrubbery, restrooms and storage space, and 80-foot-tall non-glare lighting standards with shielded lamps.

A $1.5 million grant obtained by the City paid for the synthetic turf on the soccer field. Infiltration beds under the field will detain storm water from portions of the airport and the park, and parking lots are paved in permeable asphalt to retain storm-water.

“To reflect the industrial culture of the airport, industrial materials — such as a galvanized metal, uncoated chain link fence — were selected, instead of the colorful materials often found in parks. connections in the park. intersections as abstractly representing people making connections,” according to a City press release..

The park was designed by ah’be, a Culver City ;landscape architecture and urban design firm established in 1987.

The 0.45-acre Euclid Park on Euclid Street between Colorado Avenue and Broadway will open in mid-June.

Big Blue Bus Line 14 stops at Airport Park.

Parking for the grand opening will be available south of the new park on the Santa Monica College Bundy Campus, which is accessible from South Bundy Drive.