Inclusive playground highlights planned Ehlert upgrade

Immediately after concentrating on producing advancements to its parks north of Ogden Avenue in current several years, the village of Brookfield has after attain set its sights on a important advancement to Ehlert Park on the village’s south end.

Recreation Director Stevie Ferrari acquired the go-forward on Sept. 12 from elected officers to post an application to the Illinois Section of Purely natural Resources for an Open Place Land Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) grant of up to $600,000 to make improvements to the southwest quadrant of Ehlert Park.

That area of the park, which incorporates a playground and picnic pavilion and is closely utilized by AYSO soccer and Bulldogs Youth Soccer, is the past part of the park that hasn’t been redeveloped in the earlier 15 decades. The tennis courts north of the west parking lot are currently being reconstructed this drop.

The improvements will include things like a new inclusive playground location with a poured-in-position surface, a new picnic pavilion and upgrades to the ballfield and soccer discipline. Other proposed facilities laid out in a memo from Ferrari to the village board are ping pong and chessboard tables, accessible path connections, landscaping advancements and a renovation of the Kesman Memorial Backyard garden.

Enhancements proposed for the southwest quadrant of Ehlert Park in Brookfield involve ball area upgrades, a new picnic pavilion and pathways, game tables, a renovated Kesman Memorial Back garden and a new available playground with a poured-in-area surface and sensory aspects to make it inclusive. (Courtesy Village of Riverside)

The approximated price for all of the improvements is about $1.26 million, which suggests the village’s share of the price would be about $666,000 and would be funded across two fiscal decades.

The centerpiece of the advancement is the inclusive playground area, which would present an obtainable put for youngsters with mobility troubles to love, but it would also contain regions, this sort of as mother nature and sensory regions, accessible to those with other varieties of disabilities.

“It’s the driving drive behind this,” Ferrari instructed the Landmark in a telephone job interview. “It’s also the most pricey piece, but we will have an all-inclusive park. We have a number of members in our applications with a range of disabilities throughout the spectrum, and we don’t have any parks outdoors of Sweet Cane Park, which was just improved, that give extra accessibility.”

Trustee Jennifer Hendricks mentioned that although she was pleased the village would be increasing an region of Ehlert Park that is seriously utilized by the community, she was significantly in favor of the inclusive playground concept.

“These inclusive playgrounds, especially with the sensory piece — in particular with the nature participate in piece – if it’s a actually inclusive playground, those people can be destinations,” Hendricks stated. “Families occur from towns all all over to these spots, simply because there are not really numerous in our space.”

About 30 people today attended an open up dwelling on Sept. 15 at the Brookfield Village Hall to give public feed-back on the proposed advancements, explained Ferrari, with the inclusive playground generating a ton of desire.

The enhancement of Kesman Back garden will be the initial significant overhaul of the spot, which is just northwest of the playground, given that it was established in 1999 in memory of longtime south Brookfield citizens Tony and Martha Kesman.

At the time, the family gave $10,000 to the village to plant and sustain the back garden, but its treatment and appearance has been inconsistent by way of the several years, in component because there’s no close by h2o offer.

Ferrari mentioned the system is to relandscape the backyard with native vegetation species that prosper in the disorders there. The bricks will be preserved, Ferrari said.

The deadline for filing OSLAD grant apps is Sept. 30, and the condition is expected to announce grant awards in the 1st quarter of 2023. If prosperous, the village would purpose to start work in the 2nd 50 percent of 2023 and finish the job in 2024.

Tags: Ehlert, highlights, Inclusive, planned, playground, upgrade