The Venice Strand Has an Olympic Deadline. Here's Where Each Piece Stands

On the Venice beachfront, the work that has moved fastest ahead of the 2028 Games is the work that private donors paid for. The Original Venice Skatepark already has its new concrete. The paddle tennis courts have donor money approved. The Marvin Braude Bike Trail, which LA28 will use for the first Olympic medal event of the Games, is still at the stage where the city is trying to find out what it would cost.

That order matters if you ride, run or skate the Strand every week. The proposal for a wider trail with its own pedestrian path has a deadline set by an international sporting event and no budget yet.

The Concrete Neighbors Paid For

The Original Venice Skatepark at 1500 Ocean Front Walk reopened in August. The renovation was paid for by Nicolai Marciano and managed by The Skatepark Project, and Los Angeles Recreation and Parks and Councilmember Traci Park joined as partners for the reopening celebration. The city still owns and runs the park. Private money paid for the repairs that years of salt air and heavy use had made necessary. According to Hoodline, the park is formally named the Dennis "Polar Bear" Agnew Memorial Skatepark. It first opened on October 3, 2009, as a $3.4 million city project that replaced The Pit, the informal skate spot taken out when Windward Plaza was redeveloped.

The paddle tennis courts are following the same path. On October 1, the Recreation and Parks Board took up a report recommending a community-funded project to repair, resurface and repaint all 11 courts at Venice Beach Recreation Center. Three of the courts are concrete and eight are asphalt. The work will come in as a donation of up to $141,000 through the Los Angeles Parks Foundation. The listed donors are Budge Offer, The Michael Sidley Foundation, The Lanza Family Foundation, Venice Beach paddle tennis players and members of the Venice community. The city only formally accepts the donation after the work is done, a California Coastal Commission written exemption is granted, and the department inspects the finished courts. At a Venice Neighborhood Council committee meeting in August, a Recreation and Parks representative said the resurfacing would be finished by Spring 2027, weather permitting, according to Yo! Venice.

In both projects, a group of people who use a facility raised or gave the money, and the city signed off. That is why these two moved first.

The County Lot Has a Date, Just Not a Soon One

Next on the timeline is public money with a fixed budget. Los Angeles County's lighting project for the Washington parking lot by the Venice fishing pier is budgeted at about $250,000. It calls for ten 18-foot poles, each with two solar fixtures. Yo! Venice reported in September that the lights will run at full brightness until 10 p.m., then dim to 30% and brighten when motion is detected. The County planner said construction should start in mid-2027 and take about three months, and that parking fees will not go up because of the project.

The pier has a project on paper too. A Recreation and Parks page for Venice Pier Phase II lists $1 million in Measure A funding for repairs to the deck, soffit, pile caps and piles. The page gives no schedule.

Basic maintenance is a separate issue from these capital projects. Yo! Venice reported on October 20 that about ten blocks of Ocean Front Walk lighting, from the basketball courts to 26th Street, had been out for at least a month. The council office was looking into it, and no repair date had been given.

The Path the Medals Will Be Raced On Is Still a Question

On September 23, LA28 released the first details of the triathlon courses in what it calls the Venice Beach Zone. The LA28 announcement says the first medals of the 2028 Games will be awarded there, in the women's individual event. The route covers ground you know:

• Swim: Athletes start from the beach, not a pontoon, which LA28 says has happened only once before in Olympic history. They swim 1,500 meters in two laps.
• Bike: Athletes ride the Venice bike path, then loop onto Venice streets for eight 5-kilometer laps. Riders pass in front of the Venice sign as they finish the 40-kilometer course.
• Run: Four 2.5-kilometer laps follow the same path-and-street route, then cross the Venice Canal bridges before the finish line overlooking the water.

Six days after the course release, the City Council took up the question of whether the path can handle the event. On September 29 it adopted, 11 to 0 with four members absent, a committee report on Council File 26-1136. The report asks for an assessment of the cost, funding options and resources needed to widen the Marvin Braude Bike Trail through Venice Beach and add a pedestrian path in time for the 2028 Games. Councilmembers Traci Park and Heather Hutt introduced the motion. Westside Current reported that the proposal targets a corridor shared by cyclists, pedestrians, runners, scooters and the daily crowds.

The transportation department, working with Engineering, Recreation and Parks and County Public Works, were given 30 days to report back, which set the report's due date at October 29. The council file is where the report's cost and scope will appear. The report is an estimate. It is not approval to build anything.

The motion also has a defined limit. Public comments on the file asked for a fully protected bike path on Washington Boulevard, the unprotected link between Venice and Marina del Rey. Westside Current noted that the committee's recommendation covers only the trail through Venice Beach.

Here is where each piece stood as of late October:

As the funding moves from donors to the County to a source not yet named, the dates on each project get less certain.

July 2027 Is the Real Deadline

Even if the city funds the trail work, it would need to be done well before 2028. LA28 says World Triathlon will hold a T50 Triathlon World Tour event in Venice from July 16 to 18, 2027, so athletes can race the courses and organizers can check how they hold up and how well operations run. Set against the other dates, the order looks like this:

1. Spring 2027: The paddle tennis resurfacing is expected to be finished.
2. Mid-2027: Construction of the Washington lot lighting is expected to begin.
3. July 16–18, 2027: The World Triathlon T50 test event takes place on the Venice courses.
4. July 15–16, 2028: Olympic individual triathlon, women's and men's.
5. July 20, 2028: Olympic mixed relay, which uses the Venice Beach path for two 3.3-kilometer bike laps.
6. August 18–19, 2028: Paralympic triathlon, with three 6.6-kilometer bike laps on the path and streets.

So the trail has about eight and a half months between the assessment's due date and the test event, and no funding source has been named yet. Even the donor-funded court resurfacing has to clear a California Coastal Commission written exemption before the city accepts the work. The T50 race in July 2027 will run on whichever version of the path is in place by then.

The Smaller Items on the List

The August meeting where the court timeline came up also covered work that needs less money than the trail. A CD-11 representative told the Venice Neighborhood Council's Oceanfront Walk committee that the office was putting together an infrastructure "punch list" for the beach before the Olympics. The representative also said the pagodas were being repaired, many of them fenced off while they wait, and that murals and other public art would be refurbished. Council office staff also said concerns about electric bikes at the beach would continue to be monitored, and Recreation and Parks said better bike-path signage was being prepared.

Restrooms got a formal vote. The committee voted 5-0 for a motion on upkeep at public beach restrooms and recommended a capital plan to restore them and build more before the 2028 Games. For the restrooms, a recommendation and a vote are the step before a council file or a budget line. That puts them about where the trail was before September 29.

If you're working out by the sand while all this goes on, Recreation and Parks says a day at the Muscle Beach workout area costs $10 and an annual membership is $200.

If you own near the Strand and want to know where your house stands while this work plays out, Lisa Potier can walk you through recent sales near Ocean Front Walk and the canals, with no pressure and on your timing. Start with a free home valuation.