Glendale Is Digging Up Dirt and Using It Well

Under autumn’s grey skies and freezing rain, park construction in the City of Glendale might not look like progress. The ongoing build-out of the Infinity Park expansion project is working from the ground up. Huge equipment labors at digging, sorting, relocating dirt - lots of it. The fall report for progress on Glendale’s 8+ acre park may look like dirt, but the completion forecast for late spring will be a new day in the morning for the City landscape. Moving Mountains? The rise in the terrain at the corner of Exposition and Cherry Street is known at Glendale City Hall as Mount Glendale. Public Works Director Bob Taylor explains, “Mt Glendale is composed of a mixture of dirt and construction debris and a bit of old trash from the 1950’s era.” About 13,000 cubic yards of that dirt will be excavated, sifted through a mechanized screen to separate unacceptable debris, and hauled to the construction site at Cherry and Tennessee where another 12,000 cubic yards have already been corralled by the tall safety fences surrounding the project. What looks like a pile of dirt now will be sculpted into the grassy hillsides and lawns of the newest – and biggest – addition to Glendale’s public parks known informally as Infinity Park South. The parking lot of the fire station on Tennessee Avenue is being ripped up as the entrance is moved to enable the trucks to exit from the south side of the building. The parking lot south of Infinity Park Stadium will become a green lawn that looks over the stadium. Glendale Mayor Larry Harte is pleased with the progress in the City’s park construction. “Infinity Park South is much bigger than any of our other parks. It’s designed as a kind of ‘Central Park’, which we’ve never had before.” Mayor Harte concludes, “I grew up in a house with a yard. In a community of apartment buildings and condos, residents need parks. For us, it has been a huge priority.”