The Park District of Forest Park opened the renovated Rieger Park May 17 after a multi-year effort to solidify its permitting and construction.
Rieger Park now boasts a water feature, gaga ball pit, sand area, a shelter with restrooms and tables with checkerboards. A small soccer field sits at the park’s south end, against 16th Street, and the playground has all new equipment, catered to those with physical and mental disabilities.
“One of the biggest things when you go into building parks are: What are the physical disabilities that people may have?” said Jackie Iovinelli, the park district’s executive director. “But we forget about the mental disabilities that you don’t see.”
Synthetic turf replaced the playground’s mulch to create more of a sensory experience. At the north end of the playground, there’s a row of hollowed-out circles.
“Kids with autism appreciate them because, when you get into them, they hold you and they rock you,” Iovinelli said.
Elgin-based Clauss Brothers constructed Rieger Park, and Naperville-based Hitchcock Design Group designed it with input from the community. In 2021, Hitchcock pitched concepts to locals, who gave their feedback to help create the newly opened park.
Delayed funding and permitting
In 2020, the Village of Forest Park transferred its four pocket parks to the Park District of Forest Park through a 99-year lease at $1 per year. The process to redo Rieger Park started in the summer of that year.
“I’m driving around town thinking, ‘Why do these parks look like this?’” Iovinelli said. She added that the pocket parks had outdated equipment and mulch overgrown with weeds.
Though the park district originally hoped to finish Rieger Park’s renovations in the early fall of 2022, according to Iovinelli, delays with funding and permitting stalled the process.
In 2021, the park district applied to pay for part of Rieger Park’s renovations with a $400,000 Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. But the park district’s plan shifted gears when it took over a year for the understaffed IDNR to award Rieger Park with the OSLAD grant, according to Iovinelli.
The park district wanted to renovate Rieger Park first because it is the largest of the pocket parks. Because of delays, the organization first renovated Popelka Park, which opened last summer and was funded by the park district’s capital budget.
After the park district received the OSLAD grant for Rieger Park in the fall of 2022, construction was slated to begin in June 2023.
But there was a wait for a permit from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which was also short-staffed. Iovinelli said that, after the Review requested comment from the MWRD for a story about the delay, the park district received its permit the following day. Construction on Rieger Park started in the fall of 2023.
The OSLAD grant was intended to cover half the cost to renovate Rieger Park, an estimated $880,000. But after delays, the price of materials and labor had increased by 30% to $1.2 million. The difference was paid for with the park district’s capital funds.
“And the board was just, ‘No brainer. This is what we talked about doing. We will find a way to figure that out,’” Iovinelli said of the support she received from the park district’s board of commissioners. “We’ve been able to do this with no additional tax dollars to our residents.”
To make up the extra expense, Iovinelli said the park district pushed a few items into its budget for next year. And rather than hire a contractor, park district staff planted the park’s butterfly garden and trees. Forest Park’s public works department planted an American beech tree near the park’s entrance in honor of Arbor Day.
Because the park district had to adjust its budget, it didn’t have the money to construct a pavilion or band shell on the south end of the park, like it had planned. Iovinelli said that, when the park district gets more funding, that will be the next phase of Rieger Park’s construction.
Construction to renovate the third pocket park will also begin soon.
The park district has awarded a contractor to build Remembrance Park and is awaiting a permit from the MWRD. Iovinelli said she is hopeful demolition will start in June.
“Everything is going to be gone, except the memorial,” Iovinelli said of renovations. In its place, the contractor will install a new playground, plus a splash pad and a pavilion.
Another OSLAD grant will cover $424,000 of Remembrance Park’s renovations, according to Iovinelli. The park district will pay the other half of the cost.
Until Remembrance Park is renovated, Iovinelli said she hopes that families play on, and enjoy, Rieger Park.
“It gives people an opportunity to bring the neighborhood together. I think that’s what a park does,” Iovinelli said. “I hope that it enriches their neighborhood.”
The park is located at 1526 Circle Ave.
Correction, May 24, 2024, 12 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Rieger Park. The error is due to incorrect supplied information from the Park District of Forest Park. Before the park reopened, the previous version’s sign said “Reiger Park,” but the new sign spells the name correctly as “Rieger Park.”