The first phase of a massive sports park within Orange County Great Park in Irvine will be revealed to the public Saturday.
The 53-acre sports park in is the result of a public-private partnership between the city of Irvine and FivePoint, the developer of Great Park Neighborhoods, a massive residential development being built next to Orange County Great Park.
The sports park is on the former site of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, and is expected to be nearly twice the size of Disneyland, according to a joint news release from FivePoint and Irvine.
The sports park has been planned since 2013, and will include a championship soccer stadium that can hold 5,000 fans, 25 hard-surface tennis courts, six natural turf soccer fields, five sand volleyball courts and a 1-acre playground for children.
Once complete, the sports park will be 194 acres with an additional softball complex with five fields, baseball complex with seven fields, four basketball courts, six more soccer fields, and fields that can be used for rugby, cricket and lacrosse. It will become the largest public multisport facility in California.
The Orange County Great Park Sports Park will open to the public Saturday, with a free community celebration from 2 to 9 p.m., featuring family games, food trucks and a free concert by the Blues Brothers, featuring Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, according to the news release.
News media got a preview of the facilities on Friday.