Nicholson Park Reopens as $13.5 Million Inclusive Park on San Bernardino’s West Side

At 5 p.m. on a Saturday, more than 600 people filled Nicholson Park on San Bernardino’s west side, where children crowded onto new playground equipment and families spread across a green space neighboring apartments and a mobile home community.

For a neighborhood that had gone years without access to the park during its redevelopment, the turnout Aug. 15 offered a visible measure of what the public space means to the community.

Children spun together on an inclusive merry-go-round that allows a wheelchair to roll directly aboard, played on adaptive swings and explored a newly constructed playground designed for children of different abilities.

The celebration marked the reopening of Nicholson Park, 2750 W. 2nd St., following an approximately $13.5 million transformation of nearly the entire property. The park sits on San Bernardino’s western edge, only blocks from the neighboring communities of Colton and Rialto, making the investment a significant recreational addition to that pocket of the Inland Empire.

Sixth Ward Councilmember Mario Flores, who lives across the street from Nicholson Park and grew up using it, said the surrounding neighborhood helps explain the park’s importance.

“When you look around here, it’s mobile home parks and apartments, and the thing that we’re lacking is green spaces,” Flores said. “These families have children and they don’t have a green space to walk around and play in the playground. So this park is important. It’s pivotal for it to be here.”

The renovation includes a full ADA-accessible walking path, two ADA-accessible ballfields, an inclusive playground, accessible park benches, new lighting and irrigation, renovated restrooms, shade structures, bleachers, a concession and restroom building and an improved parking lot, according to Vanessa Carter, San Bernardino’s director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services.

Carter said much of the park was taken down to the dirt during construction, with the existing restrooms among the few structures retained before also undergoing renovation.

The playground was one of the most heavily used areas during Saturday’s reopening.

In addition to the wheelchair-accessible merry-go-round and adaptive swings, Carter said the playground includes a seesaw capable of accommodating wheelchair users and a zip line with a specialized seat designed to give children with mobility challenges an opportunity to participate.

“No one should be excluded,” Carter said. “And that goes for everything that we do within our department, from our programming to our park spaces.”

Mayor Helen Tran said the inclusive design is especially meaningful for families that have children or relatives with disabilities. Tran, who said she has a nephew with autism, said intentionally designing public spaces around different physical and developmental needs allows more families to participate.

“That is important because then families feel like they are part of the community and not left out,” Tran said.

Beyond recreation, Tran said accessible parks and green space can contribute to residents’ health and well-being by giving people a place close to home to walk, decompress and spend time outdoors.

For some officials, Nicholson Park’s reopening also carries broader significance for San Bernardino’s west side.

Councilmember Treasure Ortiz said years of deterioration can cause residents to feel their neighborhoods are being overlooked and described the reopening as an important investment in a part of the city that has historically experienced underrepresentation and divestment.

“People feel extremely hopeful,” Ortiz said. “They feel a lot of community pride and support.”

Ortiz said efforts behind the project stretched nearly six years, beginning during former Councilmember Kimberly Calvin’s tenure and continuing under Flores. Funding involved multiple sources, including city and grant investments, federal American Rescue Plan Act funding and support involving Rep. Pete Aguilar.

Supervisor Joe Baca Jr. said Nicholson Park carries personal significance for him because he played baseball there as a child. Seeing hundreds of families return, he said, demonstrated why investment in neighborhood recreation matters.

“Not everyone’s fortunate to go on an expensive vacation or go to amusement parks, but this park ends up being their vacation on their time off,” Baca said. “This is about generations to come for these families to enjoy and just have fun.”

The scale of Saturday’s turnout was particularly notable to city leaders because the reopening began at 5 p.m. on a summer Saturday.

Tran said she and Flores distributed about 1,000 flyers to homes surrounding the park in the days before the celebration. Residents repeatedly expressed the same sentiment, she said: They had been waiting for Nicholson Park to return.

“The response was, ‘My goodness, finally. What took so long? We wanted that park back,’” Tran said.

The reopening included community resource booths, food vendors, free face painting and open play before an evening screening of Disney-Pixar’s “Cars,” tied to the centennial of Route 66.

Nicholson Park’s redevelopment is not finished. Carter said the next phase will focus on the park’s community center, with the city moving through design review and preparing to seek contractor bids. Construction could begin as early as spring 2027.

For the families who packed Nicholson Park on Saturday, however, one of the neighborhood’s most important gathering spaces is already back — rebuilt as a greener, more accessible place where children with and without disabilities can play side by side and where hundreds of residents once again have a public space within their own community.