Around 50 community members celebrated the grand opening of the new Pardall Gardens on Jan. 29. The park features a stage, seating and a native plant station.
Local I.V. band The Bad Neighbors played during the grand opening of Pardall Gardens on Jan. 29. Sara Stevens / Daily Nexus
The park had been under construction since April of 2025 and is along Pardall Road, which connects the town to the UC Santa Barbara campus and is one of the busiest streets in Isla Vista. Organizers celebrated the occasion by offering beverages and snacks from I.V. Drip, coupons from Woodstock’s Pizza, entertainment by the SB Bubble Guy and live music performances.
Proposition 68, which was passed back in 2018, aims to increase state funding for access to safe parks, particularly in areas that lack public green spaces, according to the California Grants Portal website. This measure allocated roughly $4 billion dollars for projects like this one. I.V. Recreation & Parks District (IVRPD) Assistant General Manager Luis Valerio explained that the garden was funded by two Proposition 68 grants.
“We received $177,000 from the per capita grant, and then we received $250,000 from the [Recreational Infrastructure Revenue Enhancement] grant. Both grants focus on environmental enhancements [and] recreational improvements,” Valerio said.
IVRPD General Manager Kimberly Kiefer, Valerio and a representative from the office of California State Senator Monique Limón spoke about the effort that went into this new addition to the I.V. community over the past five years.
“[I] felt like this park before was basically a vacant lot with one picnic table, in the busiest, thriving part of our community and [it] feels like there’s very limited places for people to sit and enjoy. [The] idea was to activate the space and make it creative for everybody to enjoy it,” Kiefer said.
Kiefer mentioned that the original drafting of the design of the park included a three-month survey to get community feedback on what the park should have.
Valerio, the acting project manager, said the IVRPD designed the park to help support local businesses, provide outdoor dining with bar stools, high top seating, picnic tables and benches. He also wanted it to be a “place where students [can] relax and hang out while coming off and on campus.”
Local I.V. band The Bad Neighbors played during the ceremony. In the future, Valerio hopes to host concerts or fundraisers at the garden.
IVRPD contracted Pacific Coast Land Design, Incorporated, a Ventura-based landscape architecture firm, to design the park. According to Valerio, project managers were impressed with the firm’s project mock-up and their plant palette.
The project was originally scheduled to be finished in October 2025 but was completed roughly three months after due to various permit requirements, rainstorms and other delays. Valerio explained that the extra time allowed plants to grow, helping them be more adjusted to their new home. According to Kiefer, the park is home to 518 native drought-tolerant plants and eight trees.
The extra months also allowed officials to see how poor weather affected the park. Despite recent historic levels of rainfall in Santa Barbara, Kiefer explained that “all the water had dissipated properly.”
“We have a rain catch basin, so it was able to capture the water, absorb it and the park was unscathed,” Kiefer said.
Marcelo Miller, a UCSB alum, is excited to use the park to “relax [and] have a better view of the sunset instead of just looking at buildings.”
Valerio said he believes the park meets the goals of Proposition 68, prioritizing water conservation and efficiency through the native plants and rain water basin.
The IVRPD hopes that this is just the first in a sequence of projects to enhance the Isla Vista community and has its sights set on a children’s park renovation project in the near future.
A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the Feb. 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.
