Del Mar Highlands Town Center supports park

CARDIFF-BY-THE-SEA — Del Mar Highlands Town Center is marking its 20-year anniversary with major renovations. In an effort to recycle items replaced during the renovation, Donahue Schriber, owner of the Del Mar Highlands Town Center, has donated more than $20,000 in plants and materials to Cardiff’s Carpentier Park.
Among the materials that will enjoy a second life at the park include dozens of iceberg roses, pigmy date palms and ferns, as well as more than 4,000 water-permeable walkway pavers, terra cotta pots and bicycle racks.
Carpentier Park, in the heart of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, is a linear park bound by the train tracks, San Elijo Avenue, Chesterfield Drive and Birmingham Drive, close to the historic Pacific Coast Highway 101. The materials donated by the Del Mar Highlands Town Center will be used for the park’s front entrance and side path, as well as to help widen the existing walkways so that double strollers, wheelchairs, bicycles and pedestrians can all enjoy it at the same time.
“One of our ultimate goals for the park is to demonstrate how to have a beautiful park and save water at the same time,” Linda Lee, park coordinator, said. “The park, which has come to fruition solely through the use of donated and recycled materials, uses 75 percent less irrigation water.”
The park improvements are to be completed by the 100-year anniversary occurring around Earth Day in 2011.
“The Del Mar Highlands Town Center is pleased to make this donation to the Carpentier Park,” said Elizabeth Schreiber, vice president and general manager of Donahue Schriber. “We are thrilled to participate in this outstanding example of recycling and the real way to go green. The park should be used as a model for further park development.”
Carpentier Park spans two acres of landscaped land and eight acres in its natural state. The park is the county’s only public organic, water-wise, sustainable park. Lee has managed Carpentier since 2002 on behalf of the Cardiff Botanical Society and the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, also known as Cardiff 101 MainStreet. Lee is a horticulturalist by trade and runs Quality Plantscapes, a landscape design and maintenance business. She and dozens of volunteers have transformed an ugly patch of weeds into the park it is today.
“The park seems to get the most use in the early evening when people come out to enjoy our famous North County sunsets over the ocean,” Lee said. “I would guess that up to 300 people a day use the park.”
For more information or to make a donation to the Carpentier Park project, visit www.cardiffbythesea.org or the Cardiff Botanical Society’s Facebook page, or contact Linda Lee at (760) 942-2212 or [email protected].
For more information or to become a member of the Cardiff 101 MainStreet or the Cardiff Botanical Society, visit www.cardiffbythesea.org or call (760) 436-0431.

Originally developed by Donahue Schriber in 1989, the Del Mar Highlands Town Center is at the corner of Del Mar Heights Road and El Camino Real.