![AAAAAND ANOTHER THING: [CENSORED] [REDACTED] [BABY SCREAMING] [SIRENS] [SILENCE].](https://thehowleronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/lucy-1200x800.jpg)
The City of Irvine plans to renovate the playground area of Northwood Community Park, also known as Castle Park.
The city’s Community Services Department and Public Works & Sustainability Department, in coordination with engineering and design consulting firm Kimley-Horn, plan to maintain a central “Northwood Castle” while adding more themed play areas, including a moat, an “adventurer’s quarters,” a “market square” and a new “Evermere Castle” structure. They also plan to add more shade and seating, address safety concerns and modernize the playground equipment.
“It’s going to be great to walk around this space,” Kimley-Horn senior landscape architect Matt Durham said, “because you’re going to be able to see pieces of what Castle Park is today and the things that we’re trying to envision and build upon.”
Project manager Raquel Garcia expects to finalize the design by the end of 2025 and finish construction by late 2026 or early 2027. The design will incorporate community feedback collected at a meeting held on May 19 at Northwood Community Center.
“The intent of this meeting is to solicit input for this playground improvement,” Garcia said. “It’s designed to enhance park amenities and incorporate accessibility improvements, as well as ensuring the space meets the needs of local residents.”
The city council created a capital improvement project for the park on June 27, 2023, using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The project currently has a budget of $2.2 million, an amount the council allocated for park improvements on Oct. 26, 2021.
The park, which opened around 1983, last had its playground equipment improved in 1997. Other parts of the park have been renovated since then, including its field turf in 2003, the
Northwood Community Center in 2013 and the Northwood Gratitude and Honor Memorial in 2017. Resident feedback at the meeting included reducing the amount of sand, improving signage and planting more trees.
“This meeting is honestly the most important part of the entire design process,” Kimley-Horn landscape architect analyst Grace Pan said. “We’re not here to impose our own ideas or dreams on the park. We’re really here to gather the ideas of the community, the people who are actually going to be using this park.”
Those interested can provide further comments when the project is presented to the Community Services Commission in June. Once finalized, the plan and a construction contract will be presented for approval by the city council.
“The castle is so incredibly iconic to this park,” Pan said. “Our dream is really to build upon that theme. Right now, you just have a castle and you have a few play structures, but what if it becomes an actual medieval town?”
