Elgin dedicating new park by Eastside Recreation Center Saturday

Elgin will be dedicating a new park Saturday next to the Eastside Recreation Center, put there to serve the neighborhood behind it and to be used with camp programs the city runs.

"There's really not another playground in that neighborhood but for a small one at an apartment complex," Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle said.

Reopelle said the city had at one time been looking at another parcel of land in the area but plans didn't work out. The location next to the Eastside Recreation Center is a better one, Reopelle said, and it provides the center another asset.

Facility Manager Mitch Lehman said work on the Woodview Park project began last fall. A mild winter helped get playground areas ready in time for summer camps, which recently concluded with school starting this week.

Work recently finished on a picnic shelter, Lehman said, and all that remains to be done is setting up the actuator for a splash pad, which should be completed this week.

Elgin used U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant money to create the 1.5-acre spot. Along with splash pad, shelter and two playgrounds, one for children ages 5 and under, the other for those 6 and older, sidewalks have been put into the park, including a circular area designed to look like a compass pointing north.

"You can see the park from Chicago Street, and it attracts a lot of attention that way," Lehman said. "People have been walking by and checking it out with their children."

The park also is adjacent to a dock on a pond that has been part of the Eastside Recreation Center's attractions for about four years, Lehman said. The city stocks the pond with bluegill and largemouth bass.

The noon dedication Saturday will be followed by a free lunch. Lehman noted the facility is hosting an open house Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a raffle at 1 p.m. for prizes that include a bicycle. The fitness room at the Eastside Recreation Center will be free to use all day, as well.

Reopelle said the cycles for distribution of Community Development Block Grant money can be complicated, but, essentially, Elgin used $235,000 of such funding the last two years and $750,000 is being used this year on parks projects.

Along with Woodview Park, parks where grant money has been used include Douglas Park, Grolich Park and Trillium Park, with work planned for St. Francis Park on the northeast side, Clifford Owasco Park on the northwest side and Kiwanis Park near the U46 observatory not far from Elgin's downtown.

In order for the city be be able to use Community Development Block Grant money on such projects, the parks must be located in low-to-moderate income neighborhoods and be designed to serve those who live nearby. The parks must also be specifically designed to serve residents living in low to moderate income neighborhoods.

The city had been divvying out the bulk of its grant money to qualifying capital projects at local nonprofits, but changed direction in 2016. Last year, the city set aside funding from its own budget for bridge loans to qualifying nonprofits that had been left in the lurch by the state being late on payments owed to them in large part because of the budget stalemate.

mdanahey@tribpub.com