The Pipe Under Marina Vista Park Is Gone. Here's What Opens Next at Colorado Lagoon

For about sixty years, a 900-foot pipe under a neighborhood park was the only thing connecting Colorado Lagoon to Marine Stadium and Alamitos Bay. It was there because of a freeway that never got built. This August, crews pulled it out. Since late August 2026, tidewater has been moving between the lagoon and the bay through an open channel for the first time since the 1960s.

The new channel takes apart a decision Long Beach made for a road it later dropped. Everything that has reopened, or is about to, follows from that.

The Freeway That Left a Pipe Behind

The lagoon wasn't always closed off. According to the City of Long Beach's history of the site, it started out open to the northwest end of Alamitos Bay. The City says the 1960s brought the bigger change, when "the open channel was replaced by a 900-foot long underground culvert for the freeway."

The freeway plans ended in 1970. The culvert stayed, and the ground above it became Marina Vista Park.

So the park most East Long Beach residents know as ballfields and lawn sits on land set aside for a highway. Under it ran the pipe that kept the lagoon's water from moving freely. Here is how the timeline runs:

1. 1923. The site becomes part of Recreation Park, bought after Long Beach voters passed a bond issue.
2. 1929. A bulkhead and tide gate go in so Colorado Street can cross the corner of Alamitos Bay. The gate controlled water depth deep enough for high diving, and a multi-story platform there was used for the 1932 Olympic Trials.
3. 1960s. The open channel is replaced by the underground culvert, and swimming at the lagoon falls off.
4. 1970. The freeway plans end, and Marina Vista Park is developed on the land.
5. 1999. Residents form Friends of Colorado Lagoon to push for restoration.
6. 2005. A restoration feasibility study funded by the California State Coastal Conservancy is completed. One of its stated objectives is to improve "lagoon circulation and the tidal connection with Marine Stadium and Alamitos Bay." The City's park page dates the same study to 2004.
7. November 2022. The streets around the lagoon close for open channel construction.
8. August 2026. The culvert is demolished and the open channel is activated.

That stretch from 1999 to 2026 is the part most residents remember. Twenty-seven years passed between neighbors organizing and the tide moving freely again.

Why the Pipe Mattered More Than It Looked

The culvert throttled how much water the lagoon could exchange with the bay. The City's history says that with "tidal flushing diminished and 11 storm drain lines discharging into the Lagoon," water quality got worse over the decades.

Runoff kept coming in from 11 storm drains, and only a narrow pipe was there to carry it out. Restoration planning worked on both ends of that problem. The Coastal Conservancy study listed objectives for redirecting and filtering runoff, checking contaminated sediment, and restoring estuarine habitat, with the tidal connection last on the list.

The open channel is that last item. In its Colorado Lagoon Open Channel Project updates, the City's Public Works department calls it "a major milestone toward the vision outlined in the 2005 Master Restoration Plan."

What Came Out of the Ground This Summer

The final switchover was the tightest part of the job. The City shut off the hydraulic connection between Alamitos Bay and the lagoon in July 2026. While the lagoon was cut off, crews ran aerators and consultants watched water quality. In August, crews demolished the old box culvert, took out the old wing walls, did the final slope grading, and put in riprap to protect the channel banks from scour.

Next came the steel. Sheet piles had gone in back in 2023 so the bridges could be built in dry conditions. To pull them out, cranes were set up at Larry Curtis Park and Alamitos Heights Park. By the week ending August 21, crews had pulled the first piles at Eliot Street, and that opened the channel. By early September, every sheet pile segment except one damaged section was out.

One scheduling detail helped neighbors. Southern California Edison canceled the high-voltage transmission line outages it had planned for August. The contractor worked out other safety measures instead, so pile removal near the Colorado Street bridge could start August 31 during normal working hours, with no overnight crane work.

The Order Things Are Reopening

Marina Vista Park came back first, then the tide, then Colorado Street. The rest is arriving in pieces. Here's where each part stood as of October 12, 2026, based on the latest updates available:

Colorado Street was the one commuters were waiting on. Longbeachize reported on October 1 that cars and bikes can cut through the lagoon area again. The outlet also noted that the streets had once been promised to reopen by the end of 2024, before an asbestos discovery set the work back. Brian Addison wrote there that the route lets commuters connect to Pacific Coast Highway or Studebaker by way of Loynes Drive instead of 7th Street.

The reopening also restored access in and out of Fire Station 14, according to the City.

Eliot Street has a longer list ahead. The City says asphalt repairs are needed near its fueling station. The concrete bike path near Eliot Street at 3rd Street and Paoli also needs repairs, because emergency vehicles were temporarily routed over it. County Sanitation District comments also call for concrete collars around manhole lids, so expect steel plates and temporary traffic control while that work happens.

Marina Vista Park Gave Up Ground and Got Some Back

Marina Vista Park is the piece of the story that lost the most. The channel runs through it, so part of a park built on former freeway land is now open water again. The rest of the park came back reworked.

In its August 11 report, the Press-Telegram described the reconfigured section: re-leveled fields with new irrigation, plus new dugouts, field backdrops and outdoor fitness equipment. The same story covered the Aug. 15 celebration of the park's return, where Mayor Rex Richardson described the reopening as a milestone toward finishing the project and Councilmember Kristina Duggan welcomed the community back.

The City's September update says decomposed granite was laid to finish the trail between the open channel and Marina Vista Park. Log-and-wire fencing, split rail along Colorado Street, and safety picket fencing at the bridges were also going in. Interpretive signs about the lagoon's biodiversity and ecology were expected along the trail in September and October.

The Volunteers Who Kept the Lagoon in Use

The restoration has been around long enough that it has its own volunteer history. According to the Friends of Colorado Lagoon, community restoration began in 2008. In that first round, volunteers pulled 25,000 pounds of invasive ice plant by hand and planted 3,500 native plants.

That work goes on through construction, and the group publishes a standing schedule:

• Second Saturdays, 10 a.m. to noon each month. Sessions start with a short history of the lagoon, followed by hands-on planting, weeding or trash pickup.
• Summer Science Shack ran Saturdays from about noon to 3 p.m. during summer 2026 at the Wetland and Marine Science Education Center.
• The Wednesday farmers market stayed open from 3 to 7 p.m. through construction, according to the City's project page.

The education center has its own reuse story. The City says it was a 1960s concession stand that sat unused from the 1980s on before being converted into a marine science center, now operated by Friends of Colorado Lagoon.

Soil work in the channel started in late September, and the City is targeting October and November for sod, native plants, trees and hydroseeding. A Second Saturday in November could put volunteers at the lagoon just as the first permanent channel plantings go into the ground.

A home renovation runs on the same permits, phases and punch lists as a lagoon restoration, and its dates can slip the same way when something like asbestos turns up. If Colorado Street's reopening has you thinking about timing a remodel, an ADU, or a sale near the lagoon, Perry Handy Homes can map out the permit path and the budget with you. Schedule your free home valuation and renovation consultation.