Elmhurst Park District board approves bids for Conrad Fischer Park playground

ELMHURST – Elmhurst residents will soon see redevelopment at the Elmhurst Park District's Conrad Fischer Park following the Board of Commissioners' unanimous approval of contracts for the plans at its Feb. 26 meeting.

Construction for the projects is scheduled to begin June 4 with a completion date of early August, according to project memos presented at the meeting.

The board had approved a playground design for the park at its Nov. 27, 2017, meeting, and bids were requested Jan. 19. At the Feb. 26 meeting, district landscape architect Miranda Lovato presented staff recommendations for the contracts, which the board then approved with a 5-0 vote on each of the three projects' bids.

Those approvals included Hacienda Landscaping Inc., the lowest responsible base bid, for the installation of the playground equipment, site furnishings and pavement surfaces; Surface America Inc., for the material and installation of poured-in-place permeable rubber safety surfacing and rubber safety tiles; and MTJ Sports for filling the existing cracks, adding the TitanTrax Shield system, color coating and restriping to convert two existing tennis courts and one roller hockey court to one tennis court, one futsal court and two half basketball courts, the memos stated. Futsal is a version of soccer played on a hard court, and TitanTrax Shield helps with the longevity of the court surface.

The playground equipment will be purchased through the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the National Joint Powers Alliance joint purchasing agreements, according to a memo.

The current playground has one tot swing, two belt swings and one ADA swing, and the new playground will have three tot swings, two belt swings, one ADA swing, an OmniSpin Spinner, a GeoPlex climber and a We-saw, which is a wheelchair-accessible, multi-seat seesaw, Park District Director of Marketing and Communications Kari Felkamp said in an email Feb. 27.

The total amount budgeted for the Conrad Fischer Park project, including the playground redevelopment, playground safety surfacing, tennis court resurfacing project, replacement of the drinking fountain, reconfiguration of the tennis court fence and miscellaneous paving is $404,000, according to the memos.

Executive Director Jim Rogers said in a phone interview Feb. 28 the Vision 2020 comprehensive strategic planning process identified Conrad Fischer Park as needing the most immediate attention for redevelopment.

He added the Park District received a "tremendous amount" of community input and feedback at two public meetings and an online survey it held.

"We know the residents in that neighborhood and in the community are very excited about the renovations, so we're very pleased with the board's approval and very much looking forward to the construction this year," Rogers said.

Commissioner Doug Ennis was absent from the Feb. 26 meeting.

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Know more

To learn about the Conrad Fischer Park project, visit shawurl.com/38hi.