LONG BEACH >> One of the city’s most dangerous intersections is on the way toward being transformed into a park.

A stretch of Martin Luther King Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets is being closed to vehicle traffic to create Robert Gumbiner Park, a 36,590-square-foot space featuring a performance area, children’s play areas, skate park, plaza and public art. Gumbiner, a doctor and philanthropist key in the founding of the nearby Museum of Latin American Art, died in 2009.

City officials determined the neighborhood surrounding the location was deficient in park space following a 2010 citywide analysis of intersections with high collision rates.

Martin Luther King Avenue and Seventh Street ranked as the most hazardous intersection in the study, with 38 injury accidents in the preceding five years and an average of 23 overall accidents annually.

Long Beach also found there was no parkland within a half-mile of the intersection and secured a $2.83 million grant in 2011 from the statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program to add green space. The park will serve about 32,000 residents who live within a half-mile radius, the city said.

The City Council voted this week to approve the project as part of a series of improvements to the intersection and nearby Alamitos Avenue and Sixth Street.

Officials said the work will include a range of roadway and traffic circulation upgrades and convert parts of Sixth and Seventh from one-way to two-way streets to make them safer.

Contracts associated with the street and park plans totaled approximately $5.1 million.

According to the Public Works Department, construction on the streets will be finished this fall.

The park will then be completed by fall 2016.

Contact Eric Bradley at 562-499-1254.