The newly dedicated Vista Hermosa Park (July, 2008) is located adjacent to Edward R. Roybal Learning Center near downtown Los Angeles at 100 N. Toluca Street. The park features 10.5 acres of trails, meadows, a waterfall and streams, picnic grounds, art elements, a children’s play area and an outdoor amphitheater. A project of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, and Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, the park recreates the natural landscape of the area while providing open space, outdoor environmental education opportunities, a children?s adventure area, and a FIFA-regulation soccer field. “The $15-million park, funded by public and private sources, will be operated by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a local government agency that partners the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District,” (Los Angeles Times, 2008).GreenGrid? modular green roof system was selected by MRCA for their ranger station and two facility buildings within the Vista Hermosa Park located adjacent to the new Belmont High School. The GreenGrid? green roofs are visible throughout the park and aid in disguising the buildings by blending them into the surrounding landscape.

In December 2007, Best Contracting installed the waterproofing membranes and the extensive (4-inch) GreenGrid? modular green roof systems on the newly designed park facilities. The 2,576 sf roof includes 320 of the 2-foot by 4-foot modules, planted with Carex testacea, Carex pansa, Sedum reflexum, and Iphieon uniflorum bulb, a drought-tolerant, naturalizing bulb from Argentina that grows almost flat along the ground and bears flowers in many shades of blue as well as white. WESTON integrated water-efficient drip irrigation systems for plant establishment and maintenance during drought conditions. The greenroof is watered by a drip irrigation system.The GreenGrid? installation is one of the first green roofs near downtown Los Angeles and will serve to be educational as the park will be visited by many school children from the adjacent Belmont High School and other park goers.