armorycannonsbetter “Armory Park is going to happen,” proclaimed Robert Garcia about a minute into his Monday morning press conference, and just like that Long Beach’s 1st District council member had come through on his promise that the event would feature a “major announcement.” Let’s hear it for accountability—not that Garcia really needed to go so far out on a limb to qualify in this case.

It’s been four years since the high-flying proposal for Armory Park had its wings clipped by a collapsing economy, a city that’s amputating its way through a budget deficit and the veto of the city traffic engineer. The blueprints that showed how the accident-prone intersections near 7th Street and Alamitos Avenue and the 1930s-era Armory Building might be transformed into parkland … well, they seemed about as realistic as a treasure map. Nobody was even talking about Armory Park, anymore.

Were they?

“Well, yeah, they were,” said Brian Ulaszewski, a 34-year-old project design director for Studio One Eleven architectural firm in downtown Long Beach, who was only 26 years old when he came up with the concept of Armory Park. “I had taken my proposal to so many neighborhood meetings, and so many people had truly bought in, that the community simply would not let this idea die.”

But as the lousy economy lingered, the odds against Armory Park seemed to be getting steadily longer, and somewhere along the line the $1million dollars that was once set aside as seed money for the project was reallocated to something else. And perhaps the biggest obstacle—traffic conditions that produced a couple-dozen accidents a year at the site—never got any better, no matter what improvements were installed.

Nonetheless, on Monday Garcia stood behind a podium flanked by oversized traffic schematics and meetings schedules—all of them labeled “Armory Park”—and declared it “a very special day for Long Beach and this neighborhood.” Apparently, Armory Park suddenly has its mojo back … uhhh, “mojo” means “money,” right?

“Nine months ago we applied for a major grant,” Garcia revealed during the press conference, “and we just learned that we will receive about $900,000 dollars to fix the traffic problem.

“Now we are preparing to apply for another grant (through the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program) to apply to the creation of Armory Park, itself—and Armory Park qualifies for the grant in every single category. I’m confident we’re going to be able to receive the money.”

In other words, the eventual existence of Armory Park is no more guaranteed than it was eight years ago, when current Assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal was the 1st District council member who was carrying the water to float Ulaszewski’s dreamboat—and whose name was not mentioned during the portion of the press conference dedicated to handing out thank-yous.

The $900,000 grant Long Beach has already received doesn’t guarantee the traffic issues in the area will be fixed, or even substantially improved.

“We’ve tried so many safety strategies over the years,” sighed Dave Roseman, Long Beach’s chief traffic engineer for a decade. “But the accident rate at that intersection has stayed high. Honestly, it has been a big disappointment to me.”

The $1.82 million grant Long Beach will apply for next month—after a series of community planning meetings—doesn’t guarantee that Armory Park will be built, either.

But Garcia does. “Armory Park is going to be a special place for Long Beach,” he says matter-of-factly. And all his “Go Long Beach” cheerleading notwithstanding, Garcia is a careful politician with ambitions for offices far beyond the Long Beach City Council. He’s not the kind of guy to place a risky bet so early in his career, yet he says it one more time: “We are going to build this park.”