Border Patrol and Friendship Park advocates compromise on design

By Elizabeth Aguilera
February 28, 2011 at 7:04 p.m.

Future visitors to Friendship Park along the border with Mexico in southwestern San Diego County may be able to chat intimately with family across the border fence and sit in the park where access has been limited since the Border Patrol secured the area with additional fencing a few years ago.

Negotiations between the enforcement agency and a group called Friends of Friendship Park advanced recently to a compromise that includes mesh fencing, a poured concrete bench and a larger access gate into the area, said San Diego architect James Brown, principal at Public Architecture and Planning and a member of the Friends group.

“It’s built between highly militarized zones but it is providing the opportunity for people to meet and it’s going to become an important symbol of our friendship with Mexico,â€