A summer baseball team composed of players from collegiate programs across the country plays its home games at Great Park in Irvine, California, and bills itself as Orange County’s best-kept secret. Relatively few people, indeed, are aware of the Orange County Riptide. With the Angels based in Anaheim, despite what the team’s official name suggests,…

Irvine’s Great Park will have an aquatic facility to train the USA Water Polo’s Olympic teams, as well as a 14,000-seat amphitheater, and veterans memorial park by 2029. The Great Park Board of Directors, made up of Irvine city councilors, voted 3–2 March 14 to carry out a plan that includes the construction of such…

The City of Irvine voted unanimously Feb. 28 to dedicate a space in its Great Park for a memorial in remembrance of the Armenian Genocide of the early 1900s. A presentation by city staff suggested its location could potentially be in the “heart of the park” neighboring a lake, the Great Meadow, and surrounding open…

IRVINE, Calif.—An art exhibit was held at the city’s great park Nov. 5, where original works of art including oil paintings and images relating to the uprising in Iran were displayed for public viewing. The exhibit is just one of many organized events in the nation to seek support for the people of Iran in…

Irvine officials voted last week to approve $130 million towards the construction of a new amphitheater in the city’s Great Park. The park’s board, which is composed of the city’s councilmembers, voted 4–1 in its approval with councilman Larry Agran dissenting. The new 25-acre amphitheater will serve as the Orange County equivalent of Los Angeles’s…

Dee DiCostanzo began to cry as she shared memories of her father John. John DiCostanzo died six years ago, expecting to be buried nearby at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine. After all, the City of Irvine had approved the 125-acre site in 2014 to build a federally recognized veterans cemetery….

IRVINE, Calif.—One month after a Veterans Cemetery broke ground in Anaheim, members of a group pushing to build the cemetery at Irvine’s Great Park sent a letter to state officials detailing issues with Anaheim’s site. The Veterans for the ARDA Site Cemetery sent the Jan. 6 letter to state legislators and the California Department of…

ANAHEIM, Calif.—Orange County officials celebrated a groundbreaking for a new veterans cemetery at Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim Hills on Dec. 8 with the planting of a flagpole. To further advance the project, State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) amended a Senate bill to order a feasibility study on the Gypsum Canyon site, which is a necessary step…

IRVINE, Calif.—Irvine officials broke ground July 7 on a water park at the Orange County Great Park. Officials are aiming to open the Wild Rivers Water Park by next summer. The Irvine City Council approved the project in April 2020 and in November the city’s planning commission granted a permit for the 20-acre project at…

A report for a state Veteran’s Memorial Park and Cemetery in Irvine, Calif. was recently released amidst controversy over where the grounds should be built. The California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) on June 4 released a report that analyzes two sites within the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, where the cemetery could be built. One option is the El…