Café under construction in Costa Mesa’s Lions Park expected to open in fall 2025
Those visiting Lions Park in Costa Mesa next year can look forward to having one more way to beat the heat, as construction is underway to bring a café to the area.
City and local officials gathered for a delayed groundbreaking ceremony on an unseasonably warm Wednesday afternoon. The café will come at a projected cost of $2.3 million.
Remarks were made, the hard hats came on, dirt was turned, and then the construction crews that have been working on the project since September picked up where they left off.
The framework of the 1,100-square-foot building is emerging above the covered fencing enclosure. A city spokesperson said the project is expected to be completed in time to serve the public by fall 2025.
Costa Mesa plans to contract with a vendor to operate the café, which will be a walk-up facility offering food and beverages with adjacent outdoor seating.
“It will really be the final amenity in this endeavor to create this social gathering space with the event lawn and the library and the community center and the aquatics center,” Assistant City Manager Cecilia Gallardo-Daly said. “It will really position Lions Park to have an even more enhanced experience for visitors and residents.”
The Lions Park campus includes athletic fields, a children’s playground, the Donald Dungan Library and the Norma Hertzog Community Center. The café is being built between the latter two gathering spots.
“This project was supposed to be part of the library building and the Norma Hertzog Center,” Public Works Director Raja Sethuraman said. “However, due to funding constraints, this project was deferred.”
As the café will serve as the final piece in what came to be known as the Library Project, Mayor John Stephens wrapped up his comments by stating, “Great things are worth waiting for.” Stephens shared his disappointment in the café being pulled out of the original budget.
“Just like now, back then, things cost a little bit more money by the time it started until the time it ended, and our budget got pinched,” Stephens said. “We approved the project. We, of course, have a library. We cut the ribbon and turned the dirt on the library. Remember, we did that in 2017. We have a beautiful Norma Hertzog Center, but it always kind of nagged at me … that we couldn’t deliver this café to the community.
“Even though now what we see on a daily basis — people enjoying the library, enjoying the community center, we have wonderful events there, we have people every night having a great time playing soccer under the lights, we’ve got so many things here — we didn’t have our café,” he added, pounding the podium as he finished his statement.
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley contributed $1.2 million from her office’s discretionary budget toward the café. The remaining $1.1 million is coming out of the city’s general fund.
“We have an agreement between the county library system and the city of Costa Mesa, so that all the funds that are generated — the net proceeds — will go back into the library system, 50%, as well as to the city of Costa Mesa for programming right here at Lions Park,” said Foley, who represents the 5th District. “The money that is generated here in the café will stay here.”
Foley also shared her vision for the space, which included a local operator representative of the community where she formerly served as mayor.
“We have lots of local coffee operators here in Costa Mesa,” Foley said. “Hopefully, they will bid on this, and we will have something that is representative of the community.
“We talked about [offering the public for play] … any number of games. I kind of like that giant Jenga game, but it would be fun to see that going on here as the community enjoys this beautiful, beautiful space that we’ve created right here in Costa Mesa.”
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