Address: 8000 Great Park Blvd, Irvine, CA 92618
Website: Great Park Page
Instagram: @yourgreatpark
Hours Of Operation:
Monday - Wednesday | 10 am - 8 pm
Thursday - Sunday | 10 am - 9 pm
In summer 2022, the Plei App expanded into its 10th region, this time landing in the City of Angels: Los Angeles, California. 🎥 Another one of the public parks that we have begun hosting games at in the region is Great Park! As part of our ongoing blog series, we will be highlighting all of our partner facilities in every region where Plei has touched down. 🛬
Keep reading to learn more about all things Great Park before you head out to play. 👇
Welcome to Great Park, an Orange County project that only keeps getting bigger over the years. Located in the beautiful city of Irvine, CA, this monstrosity of a multi-purpose complex first opened to the public back in the summer of 2007.
Multi-purpose means multi-purpose, because you can do it all at Great Park. Starting on the sports side of things, 194 acres are exclusively dedicated to the athletic department.
The beautiful game takes the main stage throughout the Great Park Sports Complex, with up to 24 (yes, 24) soccer fields available for use via reservation. You’re probably wondering about the specifics about each one, so let’s break it all down.
South Lawn:
We hope you’re paying attention, because if you are, you would have checked our math and realized we only mentioned 23 fields.
“So, where’s the 24th one?”
We’re so glad you asked.
Behold the Championship Soccer Stadium, home to none other than the Orange County Soccer Club, a professional team that currently competes in the USL Championship. The arena seats 5,500 people and opened back in May of 2017.
Well, that’s all that Great Park offers when it comes to footy. Other sports like tennis, baseball, softball and basketball also make themselves present. Check out the bullet points below for a better idea.
We almost left out the Great Park Ice & Fivepoint Arena, a 280,000 sq. ft. ice facility which serves as the official training grounds for the Anaheim Ducks of the NHL. You’ll find four (4) indoor ice rinks in here, three (3) NHL-suitable and one (1) Olympic-suitable.
And that wraps up the Sports Complex area of Great Park.
By the way, we absolutely weren’t lying earlier when we said you can do it all here.
Want to play sports? You read about it already!
Check.
Want to check out some art exhibits? Maybe catch a ride on a hot air balloon?
Check. Check.
Perhaps you want to visit the farmers market?
Some locally-grown fruit doesn’t sound so bad. Check.
Look, an excuse to come and watch a concert! Check.
Or we could just keep it simple and walk a nature trail. Check.
Wait, did we mention there’s a water park?
CHEEEEEEEEECK.
To get an idea of just how much ground this park covers, it actually sits on nearly the same amount of acres as theme parks like Universal Orlando Resort and Disney’s Animal Kingdom with over 500 acres to its name as of 2024.
The kicker is that the project is far from over, with the county setting a final goal of 1,347 acres that Great Park will eventually expand to, which would effectively make it larger than most theme parks & resorts worldwide.
A figure like this would also surpass the size of NYC’s iconic Central Park, which covers 843 acres.
We would absolutely be here all week if we kept rambling on about everything there is to do and see here. Luckily, everything there is to know about Great Park and more is available on their website.
But before we go, we’ll leave you with one more fun fact about the park. It was actually built on 28.8% of the total area that once made up the Marine Corps air station. You can find that much of the atmosphere and architecture of the base actually still remains over at the arts complex.
So, go check it out, will you?
The Plei App first hosted a pickup game at Great Park on July 8, 2024, and we continue to play here today.
Check out Great Park and other amazing Los Angeles public parks on the Plei App. Download it from the App Store or the Google Play Store today! ⚽🎥
