San Bruno’s Florida Avenue Park opens

“It was purchased out of a couple reasons — could it be an open space? To what if someone purchased it and wanted to build more housing in an already congested impacted area,” he said. “That had been kind of a plan and a thought early on, not soon after purchase.”

The original purchase cost the city a little under a million dollars, Rico Medina said, with the full revitalization and construction effort costing between $2 million to $2.5 million, in part with the help of a San Bruno Community Foundation grant.

Neighbors and residents alike were enthused at the opening event, which also featured a free soft serve ice cream truck.

“It was packed with youth, neighbors, adults and others,” Rico Medina said. “It was one of those things, with all that’s going on in the world and what’s going on with our nation, everybody was happy, everybody was feeling joy.”

Councilmember Tom Hamilton has long been an advocate for San Bruno to prioritize revitalizing parks and open space. Council discussion had been ongoing around whether to invest into Florida Avenue Park or downtown Centennial Plaza, but Hamilton said he was pleased that both spaces have now been activated.

“We always knew we needed to turn it into a real park. There were a few votes on it, there was some dispute: Should we do that first, should we do Centennial?” he said. “They’re both really important. I’m really glad we were able to do both.”

It’s the first park dedication in San Bruno since 218 Earl Glenview, which was reopened after a deadly gas pipeline explosion in the neighborhood.

Councilmember Marty Medina echoed sentiments of other councilmembers that the opening was time for the community to come together and celebrate the city’s new open space.

“It was a lot of positive energy, a lot of smiling faces,” he said. “Our community was able to really breathe it in and see how special it is.”