Anaheim will pay $200,000 to buy land along the Santa Ana River and turn it into a new park near Angel Stadium.

The City Council recently approved purchasing the property to create the 3-acre park with trails, a children’s play area and a butterfly garden. The trails will have enough room for horses.

“This is an opportunity where we identified an underutilized space,” city spokesperson Erin Ryan said. “This is just an example of finding and adding new park space to our portfolio.”

The Orange County Flood Control District owned the property and sold it for less than the average market value of land in the area, officials said. Money from Platinum Triangle development fees and a Land and Water Conservation Fund will pay for the new $4.5 million park. The city already maintains 57 parks.

Residents will be able to access the park from the Santa Ana Regional Bike Trail and Orangewood Avenue, Ryan said. It is expected to be open by 2026.

The stretch that will become a park had been where unhoused people created a tent encampment until the city cleared it in 2018.

Eventually, the park could become a part of a major river walk project Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken recently spoke about in her State of the City address.

That OC River Walk project would have new trails, pedestrian and bicycle bridges and add inflatable dams to recharge the Santa Ana River.

There’s no set date for when the river walk project could become a reality; the city has created the website, ocriverwalk.com with more on the vision.

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