Town of Moraga Completes Subsurface Lawn Drainage and Accessible Walkway Renovation at Moraga Commons Park Bandshell

Parks and recreation directors with the Town of Moraga Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers from the Moraga Park Foundation completed a comprehensive subsurface French-drain turf renovation, accessible stroller and wheelchair walkway network, and warm-amber LED pathway lighting upgrade on Saturday evening around the historic wooden bandshell at Moraga Commons Park at 1425 St. Mary's Road (at Moraga Road). Serving as the town's central civic gathering green, the 1.8-acre bandshell meadow hosts the Thursday Summer Concert Series, the Moraga Pear and Wine Festival, Fourth of July celebrations, and daily youth soccer and frisbee play.

Over decades of heavy foot traffic on clay-loam valley soils, the lower bowl directly in front of the bandshell stage had developed compacted depressions that stayed soggy well into late spring. During the six-week autumn turf restoration, landscape engineers laser-graded the bowl at a uniform two-percent slope, trenched 2,400 linear feet of perforated herringbone French drains backfilled with washed pea gravel, and laid deep-rooting West Coast tall fescue sod irrigated by weather-sensing smart rotary nozzles that cut water use by 32 percent.

Framing the grassy bowl, masons poured six-foot-wide broom-finished exposed-aggregate concrete pathways connecting the St. Mary's Road ADA parking stalls directly to four level wheelchair companion pads near the front of the stage. Thirty-four low-voltage 2,700-Kelvin bronze pathway bollards illuminate evening walks back to the parking lot after concerts conclude.

The $335,000 Moraga Commons meadow project was funded through a Town of Moraga Capital Improvement grant and a $110,000 contribution from the Moraga Park Foundation. Residents can check park rental and event calendars on the Town of Moraga Parks & Recreation Portal.