City of Concord Dedicates Solar Restroom Pavilion and Permeable Stormwater Trailhead Plaza at Newhall Community Park

Civil engineers and park superintendents with the City of Concord Public Works and Parks & Recreation Departments and watershed stewards from the Friends of Galindo Creek dedicated a net-zero solar restroom pavilion, a 28-stall permeable paver trailhead parking plaza, and a vegetated stormwater bioswale on Sunday afternoon at the Turtle Creek Road entrance to Newhall Community Park at 1351 Turtle Creek Road in southeastern Concord. Spanning 126 acres of rolling oak hills, seasonal ponds, sports fields, and the Paw Patch off-leash dog park, Newhall is Concord's largest municipal park.

At the heavily used eastern trailhead adjacent to the dog park and Galindo Creek footpath, contractors replaced an aging portable restroom enclosure and potholed asphalt lot with a permanent four-stall concrete-and-cedar restroom building topped by an 8.4-kilowatt standing-seam photovoltaic roof. The solar array powers vandal-resistant occupancy-sensing LED skylights, hands-free low-flow fixtures, automatic dusk-to-dawn magnetic door locks, and an exterior three-tier stainless-steel hydration fountain with a ground-level pet bowl.

Across the adjacent 16,000-square-foot trailhead parking lot, crews installed interlocking permeable concrete pavers over a sixteen-inch crushed-basalt reservoir bed bordered by a 320-foot cobble-and-sedge bioretention swale. During winter rainstorms, the permeable plaza captures and filters 100 percent of tire-wear particulates and stormwater runoff before water percolates toward Galindo Creek's steelhead and native turtle habitat.

The $535,000 Newhall Park green-infrastructure upgrade was approved by the Concord City Council using Measure V infrastructure funds and a Contra Costa Clean Water Program grant. Visitors can view park trail maps on the City of Concord Parks & Recreation Portal.