Costa Mesa needs to add in some fun

If you look around Costa Mesa these days, you’ll quickly notice

the city is not in the fun-making business.

There is a vacant building where an ice skating rink was. The

city’s many movie theaters have dwindled to just two.

No, Costa Mesa is more in the shopping business than anything else

these days, with a few notable exceptions when it comes to

restaurants (and a number of those are attached to South Coast

Plaza).

But if you’re looking to take the kids out, you’re pretty limited.

It’s either a play, a movie, a walk in the park or a day filled

with bowling. And soon, the last, too, may fall by the wayside.

Unless Costa Mesa leaders do something about it, the culture and

climate of the city will disappear. A possible new motto: Shop, live

and work in Costa Mesa, but have your fun elsewhere.

One way to go was pitched by Councilman Chris Steel at the last

City Council meeting: Consider building a skate park and saving Kona

Lanes at the Mesa Verde Shopping Center .

Currently, a 95,000-square-foot Kohl’s store is set to replace the

bowling alley and former skating rink and movie theater.

The bowling alley should be saved. A renovation is in order, but

the landmark is a great piece of Costa Mesa history that should not

be lost. (Contrast it to the Huscroft House. Mayor Linda Dixon last

week dropped her crusade to save the building, which originally

called Santa Ana home. Kona Lanes has always been in Costa Mesa and

it always should be.)

The skate park, seemingly, has always been a possibility, but it

is time for it to be much more than that. Newport-Mesa city and

school leaders are currently looking into a way to make that happen

and should not stop until it is built.

Is the Mesa Verde center the answer? That is a question to be

answered later because Costa Mesa leaders first need to consider the

Kohl’s store and whether, in a city already stacked with shopping

venues, another store is the proper course to take.

Whatever they decide, before, during and after their decision on

the Kohl’s store, they should be figuring out ways to keep Costa Mesa

a fun place to live.