With the Park District of Forest Park updating its main playground and the area surrounding it at 7501 Harrison St., residents are asking for a free, outdoor basketball court and a better field to play soccer on before the park district updates the existing one next year as a part of the project.
About 50 residents attended, and many shared comments, at the Feb. 19 park board meeting. During the meeting, RVi Planning and Landscape Design, formerly Hitchcock Design Group, presented plans for the park district project and recorded public input.
The project includes a new turf field, main park playground, and an updated area surrounding the two — including an outdoor classroom, game tables and a putting green, which are required in order to receive a $600,000 matching state grant the park district received from Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development in January. The park district will likely have to pay an additional $500,000 to finance the project, estimated to cost $1.75 million in total.
After several residents shared during public comment that they wanted a free, outdoor basketball court, Jackie Iovinelli, the park district’s executive director, said there wouldn’t be the space or money to include that in this project, which was designed around updating the turf field and playground. But the park board said it would add discussion for a new basketball court to its next meeting on March 19.
With residents asking why the park district can’t amend the area it’s working on or replace some of the tennis courts that they rarely see people on with a space for basketball, board members explained how that wasn’t in the scope of this project.
“The tennis courts were never a part of this” said Kristen Lyons, vice president of the park board. She added the park district could apply for another grant to build basketball courts, but that they physically would not fit in the area of its current project.
“One thing that this board has done in the past is, when we have gotten people that have come to us with ideas, we’ve taken those ideas and we’ve spent a lot of time and effort into making it right,” Iovinelli said. “If this is something that everybody wants, let’s give us some time to think that through, instead of trying to shove it in a space it doesn’t fit.”
Lyons also said the park district would love to collaborate with School District 91 to create a basketball court at Grant White Elementary School, which closed in 2022 but has ample blacktop space.
“I think an overarching theme with the basketball courts and everything else is everybody kind of feels a little surprised that things are this far along in the process, and there also isn’t any kind of coordination,” said Samantha Abernethy, a Forest Park resident, during the meeting. “Shouldn’t you guys be coordinating with the school district, with the town, with the village, to figure out what is best for this community? Because the kids at the middle school do need some place to play basketball, and it would make sense for the park to help them out and be part of that.”
New turf field
Forest Park residents have long requested a new turf field at 7501 Harrison St. After over a decade of use, the field, after construction, is expected to be striped for soccer, as well as football and lacrosse. Estimated to cost $560,000, a new field was the impetus for the park renovations.
Tim Gillian, the park board’s president, said that, when the park district applied for the OSLAD grant, “the overriding concern was the soccer field. It’s clearly something that gets the most play, other than the pool. The grant was tailored to fit redoing the soccer field.” He added there will be opportunities for the public to weigh in at future park board meetings before the board votes on the project’s final bid package and contractor.
With construction on the field likely starting in spring 2027, the park district had a professional inspect the field last fall and will do the same this spring but says the field currently doesn’t need any repairs before the spring soccer season.
Residents attending the meeting disagreed.
“What are we going to do for the safety of the kids?” said Kerry Feczko, whose daughter plays with the Forest Park Youth Soccer Association. “There are so many games every single day, and kids are going to get hurt. You can run all the reports you want, but it is in terrible condition.” She asked if, because of the field’s status, FPYSA could practice on the park district’s softball fields, since she’s never seen anyone there while using the turf field.
Iovinelli said that the softball fields are frequently in use. During the spring, Little League baseball — which the park district runs with River Forest and, last year, had 45 Forest Parkers participate — practices at the softball fields Monday through Friday 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. They practice for 29 hours for the season and pay $50 an hour. The Park District of Forest Park’s in-house softball team uses the fields at least three hours a day, six days a week during its season.
The 150 kids in FPYSA’s league use the turf field 678 hours a year for $4 an hour, according to Iovinelli. She added that Forest Park Middle School uses the turf field 74 hours a year and pays $20 an hour. And that the Youth Football League has requested to use the turf fields but “They couldn’t because youth soccer had monopolized its time.”
Iovinelli said that, once the turf is redone, the park district should re-examine its pay structure for all sports that use its fields.
“It makes me a little worried to hear it called ‘a multi-purpose field,’ said Forest Park resident Bambi Alexander of the additional striping on the new turf. “Because that soccer field is booked all the time. There are not enough soccer fields in the area.”
Transparency about updates
RVi Planning and Landscape Design held its first community input meeting in August at the main playground, though many residents were unable to attend. Some said it seemed like the park district already knew what it would build before getting feedback from residents.
“It seems like the scope was established before community was really included,” said Forest Park resident Lisa Hyatt. “I went to the August meeting with my daughters to see a fully designed park already. … the basketball courts, no matter what, if we would have engaged in the first place, it seems like that wouldn’t even be included.”
Forest Park resident Alec Bloyd-Peshkin said he worried that some aspects of the park that are currently planned for wouldn’t be as used as much as a basketball court might.
“I have this fear that we’re going to put that $27,000 into a putting green and almost never see it used, like the bocci ball courts. That should be reconsidered, and I’d say the same for the concrete ping pong tables, where residents have to bring their own paddles to use them,” Bloyd-Peshkin said. They would also need to bring their own clubs for the putting green.
“Some of the items that seem like they’re funny or maybe don’t get as much use or seem odd, there is a strategy to achieve grant funding, and that is a diversity of elements,” said Eric Hornig of RVi Planning and Landscape Design at the park board meeting.
In the $1.75 million project, the turf field is expected to cost $560,000, the playground $729,000, the putting green $30,000, the outdoor classroom and recess games $140,000, the game table area $27,000, landscaping $26,000, and CPA and testing costs $230,000.
The project’s design and engineering will take place through June, and the permitting process will occur in the summer. Officials expect bidding to occur in fall and construction to start in spring 2027.
