A $40-million project will clean MacArthur Lake. Will it help fix the park?

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MacArthur Park was designed as a bucolic respite from urban life, but in recent years it’s become better known as a homeless gathering spot, an open-air illicit drug market and a magnet for gang violence and crime.Los Angeles officials announced a $40-million project at the park this week that’s aimed at turning rainstorm runoff into drinking water — and maybe improve the park’s tarnished reputation as well.The project will also include new landscaping, walking paths and other features to enhance the location’s appeal as a park.

“We know MacArthur Park has faced real challenges, and those challenges are the result of under-investment in infrastructure, public health and basic services,” City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the area, said at the unveiling of the park plans Wednesday.“But what we’re doing now is different.”The MacArthur Park Lake Stormwater Capture Project calls for building a water treatment system that will be able to turn rainfall into drinking water — roughly 9 million gallons annually, or enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool 14 times, Los Angeles Sanitation Department interim general manager and executive director Traci Minamide said at the Wednesday news conference.

The project will add a pedestrian bridge, updated walking paths, native trees and landscaping for shade, seating and a decorative water feature.The stormwater system will clean 244 acre-feet of stormwater a year, clearing 10 tons of sediment before it touches MacArthur Lake or the downstream Ballona Creek, Board of Public Works Commissioner John Grant said at the news conference.

“This lake has seen it all.It’s also absorbed it all; the runoff, the pollution, and the years when this neighborhood was not the first on anybody’s list,” Grant said.The project is set to finish sometime around the end of 2028 or the beginning of 2029, Hernandez s...