In less than four years, Los Angeless Exposition Park will become the only site in the world to host events during three different Summer Olympics. A perpetual flame burns as a reminder atop the parks Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where Olympic rings are tacked, forever intertwined with L.A.s fate. This is the park where a tiny L.A. introduced itself to the world during the depths of the Depression in 1932. This is the park where a man wearing a jet pack blasted over a stunned crowd during the exuberantly designed 1984 opening ceremonies. But today, the 160- acre South L.A. park that should evoke the citys enduring Olympic spirit is instead filled with unrealized plans and deferred maintenancecrumbling walls, dead vegetation, and acres of cracked pavement for parking cars instead of actual park space. In August, $352 million in state funding was announced to turn a surface parking lot on the south side of Expo Park into 6 acres of green space, a move that park boosters hope will be the first of many major public investments to be completed by 2028. We are in the early stages of a historic transformation at Exposition Park that will shape us into a premier world destination, said the parks general manager, Andrea Ambriz. This transformation began with the community asking for green space. While the worlds attention might be focused on the park for four weeks four years from now, Ambriz is looking for lasting changes for one of the most park-deprived neighborhoods in L.A. This park project represents the single largest green infrastructure investment the state has made in the community of South Los Angeles, she said.Each of the four museums around Los Angeless Exposition Park are getting shined up ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games.(Monica Nouwens)Originally conceived as an agricultural fairground in the late 1800s, Expo Parks evolution from orange grove to global mega-event destination mirrors the story of Los Angeles. The park was filled with Beaux Arts cultural monuments during the City Beautiful movement, then civic leaders rallied to build the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1923. Each Olympic wave brought with it some form of park investment. The swim stadium built to host aquatic events in 1932 received a renovation paid for by the surplus from the 1984 games; whats now named the LA84 Foundation/ John C. Argue Swim Stadium will be hosting diving events in 2028. Even recent no-build Games have yielded privately funded venues in the park, like BMO Stadium, completed in 2018, which will host to-be-determined events in 2028.Currently the entrance to the Coliseum hides behind concrete blockades, a 10-foot fence, and a sea of parking. (Monica Nouwens)But with severe budget limitations at the state and local levels, the park may need creative ways to fund its improvements. Although Exposition Park is state-operated, overlapping jurisdictions are managed by the city and county of L.A., sometimes revealing competing interests between various institutional developments and the preservation of open space. In 2020, a new master plan for the park was approved by state, county, and city officials aiming to strike that balance. Part of the challenge was navigating each entitys unique lease agreement. According to Neal Payton, senior principal at Torti Gallas + Partners, which led the master plan project, We had to play between the lines and make the connections between themto the extent that each building would let us. The solution was a plan consisting of nine separate elements that could hypothetically be implemented in phases as money and resources became available. The newly funded park space is one of those elements, and its a key one because it solves a spatial equity issue, Payton explained: Multiple iconic gateways like the Rose Garden serve the well-resourced USC border to the north, while the neighborhoods to the south are greeted by shimmering lots of cars. People come to Expo Park to go to a stadium or a museum or maybe to go swimming, said Payton, but we also want people to come to Expo Park because its a park. The facade of the Lucas Museum of the Narrative Art, designed by MAD with Stantec and funded by George Lucas, is nearing completion. (Monica Nouwens)For the moment, most of Expo Parks major improvements are happening institutionally within its four museums, each getting shined up for 2028. The California Science Center recently hoisted the Space Shuttle Endeavour upright alongside two rocket boosters. The California African American Museum has reopened after a $5 million upgrade. And MAD Architects Lucas Museum of Narrative Art hovers patiently above a new 11-acre green space designed by Mia Lehreranother parking lot that became a park over a parking garagescheduled to open in 2025. In November, the Natural History Museum will open an audacious expansion named NHM Commons, which removes the wall of the museums monolithic south entryway. Were not abandoning the south entrance; were essentially stretching it to the west to make a more inclusive, transparent, multifunctional point of entry, said architect Fred Fisher, of Frederick Fisher and Partners. And most importantly, he noted, this whole new section is before the paywall, meaning that the entire commons, including a theater, gallery, and new cafe, does not require paid admission and can operate independently of the museums hours. The two new big windows in the facade are a gesture to connect to the community and break down any perceived barriers, Fisher said. This is all about making the museum spill into the park.Another institution on Expo Park grounds, the Natural History Museum, is preparing to open NHM Commons, a cafe and public space that will welcome visitors even without a ticket.That mindset should be embraced by more of the Natural History Museums neighbors. Just across the lawn, the Coliseum, which should be a jewel at the center, is easilythe least-friendly building in the park. In 2018, USC paid for a $270 million glow-up right after L.A. won the 2028 bid; from within its arches, the century-old building has never looked better. But the perimeter is now a hostile warren of fences shrouding this beloved structure with the architectural equivalent of a clear plastic game-day backpack. One master plan element that could soften its edges is the Olympic Ring Walk, a proposed walking path dotted with sports history exhibits that would encircle the stadium. During the Olympics the Coliseum will be fitted with a pricey temporary floor to host track and field events. But why make such an improvement ephemeral and only for athletes to enjoy? Heres an opportunity to fix the current conditions and leave it for the community, better than before. Lets get Nike to sponsor it.The California Science Center has been designed by ZGF to hold the Endeavor space shuttle upright inside the building. (Monica Nouwens)A walking track would also imply that pedestrians are welcome in the park, especially when there are two E line light-rail stations right there. The strategy of tucking parking beneath has locked in a disappointing reality for Bill Robertson Drive, the northsouth street that slices through the park, because its now become the only way to access various parking garage entrances. The master plan calls for a shared street concept that would delineate a majority of the space for people. But that part is up to the City of L.A., which also has a languishing streetscape improvement proposal named Reimagining Expo Square thats meant to create better pedestrian connections on the streets bounding the park. While components of the proposal have found their way into an active transportation corridor project on four surrounding streets, the city hasnt yet presented a timeline for fixing the parks dangerous and disjointed perimeter, which certainly doesnt bode well for what organizers have dubbed the car-free games. Were happy to see enhanced pedestrian and bike facilities coming to these four street corridors, said Abby Stone, senior project director of RIOS, which consulted on the project. And we also hope that the city is able to proceed with some of the more robust streetscape enhancements that we originally proposed, including additional street trees and plantings, curb extensions, and new environmental graphics.Integral to mitigating the effects of heat in the city, swimming facilities are open to the public in Expo Park. But these facilities were first built in the 1930s, ahead of the very first L.A. Olympics. (Monica Nouwens)Concrete park benches circa the 1980s, when L.A. last hosted the Olympics, remain, in various states of decay. Each is stamped with the LA84 logo. (Monica Nouwens)These same interventions need to happen throughout the park as well. An esplanade that runs east to west through the park is currently lined with a hundred or so concrete benches left over from the 1984 Games, each stamped with the LA84 logo and in varying states of deterioration. The master plan recommends a heroic promenade with a festival-like rendering showing wider pathways, better benches, brightly colored banners, and groves of shade trees. But if the park is meant to look like this by 2028, its nearly too late to start planting them.Alissa Walker is the editor of the newsletter Torched (torched. la), which tracks the legacy improvements Los Angeles is making ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.