The park district is looking to renovate its soccer field and main playground on Harrison Street. In August, the park district held a community meeting to get input on potential updates. Over a dozen Forest Park residents and their children attended.
More recently, residents are speaking up at park board meetings to request more transparency and communication about the updates, specifically around the soccer field. Youth and adult soccer leagues use the field, along with Forest Park Middle School’s soccer teams.
At the Dec. 18 Park District of Forest Park’s board meeting, resident Hannah Dallmann asked the board if the field would be safe to play on come spring. She also asked for safety testing that went beyond a visual inspection, in the form of G-MAX impact testing and infill depth measurements to better understand the field’s condition.
“I really hope our turf field is still usable, but we won’t know unless we have real data to back that up,” Dallmann, a coach for the Forest Park Youth Soccer Association, said during public comment. “And if it isn’t usable, then we need time to figure out where to play until the field is replaced.”
Jackie Iovinelli, the park district’s executive director, told the Review that the Park District of Forest Park used G-MAX testing while building its new pocket parks and said it’s standard procedure for installing new surfaces.
“It’s a pretty expensive endeavor. We are satisfied with the testing that we have completed,” Iovinelli said, adding that the fields will be ready to be played on come spring, though there may be some areas of raised turf and loose pieces of rubber.
“The field is safe to play on, it just doesn’t look as pretty as we want it to,” Iovinelli said.
Because the field is over a decade old, the park district has someone come out and inspect it, once in the spring and again in the fall. This fall, a Synthetic Turf of Illinois employee surveyed every section of the field on his hands and knees.
Iovinelli said Synthetic Turf of Illinois will inspect the surface again after winter to make sure it doesn’t need any repairs before the spring soccer season. Otherwise, Synthetic Turf said the field has at least another year or two of use before it needs to be replaced.
The OSLAD grant
On Dec. 18, the park board unanimously approved a proposal from Hitchcock Design Architect Services for $137,000 for the group to undergo data gathering, design, development and construction documentation. The approval is contingent on the park district getting a grant from Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development, a grant program financed by Illinois’ real estate transfer tax that funds local government agencies developing parks and open space.
To finance the soccer field renovation, the park district is applying for a $600,000 matching OSLAD grant. Hitchcock Design Group — which designed the park district’s pocket parks — has accessed OSLAD funding with previous projects in Forest Park and understands the grant process, park officials said. Recipients will be awarded in January, and Harrison Street construction could start as soon as the fall.
Iovinelli said that, even if the park district doesn’t get the grant, it will still redo the soccer field. Replacing the soccer field surface is estimated to cost $750,000. The rest of the main playground updates would be put on hold until the park district can apply for another grant to help finance them.
“That’s always kind of been the driving force,” Iovinelli said of the soccer field, which inspired updates to the surrounding area, too.
During her public comment, Dallmann — and three other Forest Park residents who said at the park board meeting that they supported her comments — said locals should also be more engaged in the grant proposal process.
“If it goes through, it will shape the park for the next 10 to 20 years. And the people who use this park the most haven’t been meaningfully consulted. Instead, the process feels reversed — plans first, public second,” Dallmann said, “When safety concerns go unheard, it’s hard to trust that our voices will matter when decisions are made about other projects.”
The park district needed to hold a community meeting in order to apply for an OSLAD grant, but many interested residents were unable to attend the Aug. 26 meeting because it was the same day as the first practice of the season for the Forest Park Youth Soccer Association league. In September, over 100 locals signed a letter to the park board asking to prioritize redoing the field so that children have a safe place to play and build community.
At the park board meeting, Iovinelli said Hitchcock doesn’t officially start the design process until the park district gets the OSLAD grant. She added that, in order to receive the grant, the park must include certain aspects, like a rain garden and a space for an outdoor classroom.
“But that’s not the end of the design. Hitchcock comes in and tells us what we can fit based on our space, based on safety regulations, based on a number of different things,” Iovinelli said. “They sent us the proposal early because we let them know that our residents are eager and they’re interested in getting the ball rolling. So instead of waiting until January, after we found out about the grant, we wanted to approve it at this meeting to get it going.”
If the park district gets the grant, architects will have another community meeting to gather input and walk residents through the process.
“I want to make sure people know we are redoing the sports field but also understand that a lot of the timelines are not in our hands,” Iovinelli told the Review. “But know, they can count on that and that we are working very diligently on making sure that happens.” She added that she’ll share a timeline with the public once she gets it.
After talking about it over the last year, the park board is also looking for a consultant to write up a strategic plan for the Park District of Forest Park. Iovinelli said that, since the Covid-19 pandemic, the park district has been trying to get everything up to standard, including redoing all of the pocket parks.
“We’re finally at a point where we feel like it’s a good time to start engaging a consultant, to start working on a five-year strategic plan,” Iovinelli said.
