The Park District of Forest Park is one step closer to updating the turf field and main playground on Harrison Street.
On Jan. 14, the park district announced it was awarded a $600,000 grant from the State of Illinois’ Open Space Land Acquisition and Development program. The matching OSLAD grant will help fund the construction of a new turf field, main park playground, and the surrounding area — including an outdoor classroom area, pavement games, game tables, a putting green, rain garden, landscaping and interpretive signage, all of which is required in order to receive the grant.
“This is great news for our Park District and for all our residents of the Village,” Park Board President Tim Gillian said in a statement. “Once again, the Park District and the State and Legislators come through with a huge grant to help the Park District continue focusing on improving the quality of our parks and services.”
OSLAD grants fund the development of public parks and outdoor recreational space. They were created in 1986 as a cost-sharing program between Illinois’ state and local governments.
The $600,000 OSLAD grant will only fund a portion of a new turf field, estimated to cost $750,000. On top of the park district’s matching $600,000, it will likely have to pay an additional $300,000 to finance the project, estimated to cost $1.5 million in total.
The six things that the park district needs to include in order to get the matching grant are “items that we know will fit and we know we can afford,” Jackie Iovinelli, the park district’s executive director, told the Review. That includes the putting green, what Iovinelli calls the main playground area’s “unique thing.”
“We put a bocce court in Remembrance Park because that could be your destination for bocce. But if you want to play in the gaga pit, you’re going to go to Rieger Park,” Iovinelli said. Both parks also got OSLAD grants. The putting green, she added, “is something that we’ve never done before. It’s a unique feature that is also low cost.”
Updates to the multi-sport turf field have been long awaited by residents. Several attended the December park board meeting to request that the turf field get GMAX impact testing and infill depth measurements to better determine if it’s safe to play on when sports seasons start in the spring.
Iovinelli previously told the Review that GMAX testing is costly and the park district is satisfied with the safety testing they’ve completed on the turf field. In the fall, Synthetic Turf of Illinois inspected every part of the field and will do so again in the spring to check if it needs any repairs, but Iovinelli said it will be safe to play on in the spring.
The soonest construction could start on a new turf field is in the fall. As has been required ahead of the launch of the park district’s pocket parks, the new turf field will undergo a GMAX test before it opens.
Iovinelli estimates that it will likely be at least six months before the park district can break ground on the field or main playground. She said the project’s architect, Hitchcock Design Architect Services, is currently working on a topographic survey before design plans unfold over the next couple months.
At the December park board meeting, residents also asked to be more involved in the process of creating a new field and playground.
Iovinelli said Hitchcock Design will host a second community input meeting, following one last August, likely before the Feb. 19 park board meeting.
“We appreciate having peoples’ input and coming in and sharing ideas. It’s really cool to watch it come to life,” Iovinelli said. “It’s important. The residents deserve it. The state believes in us to give us this money. Let’s do it.”