For Now, Palisades Saturdays Run Through Latimer Road

"This place is not just a collection of buildings and fields and courts," JJ Redick told the crowd on Alma Real Drive on September 15. "This place is the hub of this community." He said it at a groundbreaking. The building he was describing was a gym built in 2000, and it burned in January 2025 along with the tennis pro shop. The older 1950 gym was torn down earlier this year.

That afternoon Mayor Karen Bass, Rick Caruso of Steadfast LA, Councilwoman Traci Park and Redick, whose LA Strong Sports Foundation co-leads the project, started a $40 million reconstruction. It is the largest public-private partnership in the history of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, and private donors are paying for all of it.

Redick's point still holds. The hub just has a different address this fall. Fall league registration still happens through the Palisades Recreation Center, but the practices, games and classes happen somewhere else. Most of them now run through Rustic Canyon Recreation Center on Latimer Road, and the weekend lawn events have moved to Simon Meadow on Sunset.

The front desk moved first

The Palisades Rec Center staff moved before most programs did. At a June 3 community webinar, officials said staff had moved to a satellite office at Rustic Canyon and that the center's phone number was being transferred there. A building that was also set up for some youth practices then took on most of the Palisades schedule.

Rustic Canyon Recreation Center is at 601 Latimer Road. The City lists its hours as 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday. It is closed Sundays except for permitted use. Its fall 2026 class list covers almost every age group. Adults have fitness, tai chi, Live Ball tennis, social dancing, pickleball, ceramics, table tennis, volleyball, senior basketball and a walk-and-talk reading club. Kids have beginning basketball, ballet, all-sports classes, pee-wee and main-draw tennis, hip-hop and a volleyball clinic. It also has a children's play area. That matters this fall, since the Palisades playground is closed for the whole construction period.

Where each fall league actually plays

The City's Fall 2026 league flyer still carries the Palisades Recreation Center name and the 851 Alma Real Drive address. Read past the header and almost none of the activity happens there. Here is where the fall season actually takes place:

Take a family with one child in Bantam basketball and an older child in Majors. On a game Saturday they may be at Rustic Canyon in the morning and Pali High in the afternoon. A family with a flag football player drives to Penmar on a weeknight. A family with an AYSO player could be at any of four campuses.

Baseball is the clearest example of how far things spread. In spring 2026, the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association merged with Santa Monica Pony Baseball. Its Palisades teams played at Cheviot Hills, Marine Park, John Adams Middle School and Los Amigos Park because the Field of Dreams was unavailable. PPBA's online calendar showed no entries for October 2026, so there is no confirmed fall venue for Palisades Pony games. Families should check with the league directly.

Simon Meadow became the Y's front lawn

Rustic Canyon took the indoor schedule. The outdoor weekend events moved to Simon Meadow, at Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road.

The Lowe Family YMCA's Via de la Paz building is being rebuilt, and the YMCA lists that location as closed every day. In May the Y said it was operating "without walls," running classes at the American Legion and other local sites until the new building opens. In practice, Simon Meadow at 15551 W. Sunset Boulevard is where the Y's outdoor programs take place. Fall T-ball is there on Saturdays. The Y held a free Back-to-School Bash there on September 26, with lawn games and food trucks. The third annual California Cup Bocce Ball Invitational is set for October 3, with six temporary courts, a DJ, a cookout and a pumpkin patch that visitors can also enjoy.

The two main sites split the work along clear lines. Rustic Canyon runs the classes. Simon Meadow hosts the gatherings. Neither one is on Alma Real.

What still works on Alma Real Drive

The original campus isn't completely shut. The June construction plan closed the playground and outdoor basketball courts but kept the tennis courts, the baseball field and the bocce courts open during work. That was the plan in June. The sources don't confirm each facility's status this month.

• Palisades Tennis Center. LiveBall was back on the four upper courts by mid-July, and junior after-school programs were scheduled to start September 8. At a July 14 Park Advisory Board meeting, a Rec and Parks facility director said courts five through eight "should be opening up soon." By late August, the Palisades Charter High School tennis program had permits to use the lower courts, as it had in past seasons. Whether those lower courts are open for general public play is something to confirm on site.
• Palisades Branch Library, temporary location. Two portable buildings in the library's original parking lot at 861 Alma Real Drive are open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. The permanent branch has not reopened. The October calendar includes East West Players' "When Yuri Met Malcolm" on October 8 and Día de los Muertos crafts on October 30.
• Pali High pool. The public pool is the Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center at Palisades Charter High School, not the Rec Center. The school's page describes it as newly restored and offers public lap-lane reservations.

The park comes back in a deliberate order

The best reason to learn the temporary map is that the project won't return all at once. Pieces will come back on different dates.

1. Ball fields first. At the July 14 Park Advisory Board meeting, Steadfast LA managing director Nick Geller said the crews would try to rebuild the baseball fields so PPBA could play its March 2027 season there. "We expect the baseball field to be up and running while we are working on the rest of the park," he said. If that holds, spring baseball returns to Alma Real while the building is still under construction.
2. The rest takes 15 to 18 months. Geller gave that range in July, saying weather and supply delays could push the work past 15 months. The June webinar had estimated 14 to 16 months. From a September 2026 start, 15 to 18 months means roughly the end of 2027 into early 2028. Treat that as an estimate.
3. The cost estimate has moved. The July meeting put the cost at $45 million to $50 million. The groundbreaking coverage used $40 million.

Geller also answered questions about who will run the park afterward. "Once we are completed with our scope of this project, we donate it back to the City of L.A., and the city continues to run the park as it was prior to the fire," he said.

The finished park will differ from the old one. Gensler designed the main building, which will have two high-school-size basketball courts, two indoor pickleball courts, a larger lobby and community rooms for birthday parties and meetings. Landscape architect Nick Rael of SWA Group described a two-level playground built into the slope and connected by embankment slides, a new U10 soccer field, two lighted outdoor basketball courts, and a central gathering space called the Pali Hub. The plan also adds terraced seating along the ball fields and tennis courts, an enhanced Veterans Garden, and more EV and ADA parking. The old playground equipment won't be thrown out. It will be donated to another park in the district.

Filling the rest of the fall weekend

Some families now go somewhere new on Saturdays without a game on the schedule. Two nearby options are open again.

Temescal Gateway Park reopened in July. The rebuilt Rivas Trail, the Sunset Trail, and the Sycamore Grove and Rubell picnic areas are open. The Temescal Canyon Trail to the waterfall is still closed because of fire damage. At Will Rogers State Historic Park, the Polo Field, Main Lawn and Picnic Area have been open since a limited reopening in November 2025. The Backbone, Rivas Canyon/Temescal and Rustic Canyon trails are still closed.

For Halloween, the City's October 2 update lists Halloween Pali VegFest at Palisades Village Green on Sunday, October 25, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a costume contest open to all ages. The Wednesday farmers market on Swarthmore Avenue runs through December 30, from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Until the ball fields reopen, a typical Palisades Saturday may start with T-ball at Simon Meadow, move to a basketball game at Rustic Canyon or Pali High, and end with a stop at the library portables on Alma Real before they close at 5.

At Kyle Leibovitch, we're keeping track of each stage of the Rec Center rebuild, from the March 2027 baseball target to the day the new gym opens. If you'd like to talk about what the return of the park means for your street, your schedule or your plans, schedule a consultation and we'll go through it with you.