Although there are a couple of obstacles to be cleared, the Alhambra City Council has approved a proposed dog park site at Almansor and Corto streets, near the YMCA of the West San Gabriel Valley.

If it comes to fruition, it would be Alhambra’s first off-leash dog park.

This is not a done deal, and if this site does not work, the city will switch to one of three others presented by the city’s parks and recreation director, Michael Macias, at the July 25 City Council meeting.

Funding would come from the American Rescue Plan, with a cost estimate of $500,000.

“This is an item that has been long awaited by many residents of the city of Alhambra and I am overjoyed to see our city continuing to invest in our communities and act on the needs of our residents,” Councilwoman Sasha Renée Pérez said.

The site is owned by the city, but the YMCA — whose building on the same parcel — is on a 50-year lease. There are 16 years left on the lease; the proposed dog-park site is basically an unused parking lot.

Another issue is that the Army Corps of Engineers has a culvert under the site, and the city has been trying to contact that government body to make sure any construction would not interfere with it.

“There hasn’t been any real movement with the YMCA at this point,” Mayor Jeffrey Maloney said Thursday. “And that’s what I suspected, because what we did the other night was basically just give direction to staff to kind of study the feasibility of that location.

“We’re all very hopeful about this. It’s a big benefit to the community and I think people will want to see this in that location.”

Maloney said a dog park is one of the issues he gets asked about the most.

He noted that when he was first elected to the City Council in 2016, the city did not even allow leashed dogs in its parks. That changed under a 2018 ordinance.

“That was a big step at that time, and now we’re looking to take the next one,” Maloney said.

Macias provided the council with four possible sites. Although Councilmember Ross Maza preferred one of the others, he voted with the other four members at the July 25 meeting to go with the Almansor/Corto Dog Play Area, which would include an 8,000-square-foot area for big dogs and a 5,900-square-foot area for small dogs.

It would also include a dedicated parking lot and it is not in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which means fewer complaints about noise and added traffic.

The site is just west of the Alhambra Golf Course driving range and practice area.

The other three sites are at Sixth Street and Ramona Road, Granada Park and Story Park, which would include construction of a pickleball court. But those sites would only be considered if the Almansor/Corto location fizzles.