Hibbard Park fixes could lead to a grant, but Wilmette commissioners hesitate at possible $2.1 million budget

Improvements could be coming to Wilmette’s Hibbard Park, but park district commissioners said they want to see a lower price tag before committing to any changes.

Upland Design, of Plainfield, presented to the Wilmette Park Board during its regular meeting on Monday, Aug. 12, where the firm shared its proposal for Hibbard Park, 3000 Glenview Road, adjacent to the Community Recreation Center in southwest Wilmette.

Upland’s Maria Blood said the purpose of sharing the proposed improvements was to help the Wilmette Park District receive an Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development Grant. She said the district is more likely to receive the grant if the proposed improvements include recreation, natural resources and educational components.

The park district plans on applying for the OSLAD Grant, which could be up to $600,000, by mid-September.

Among the proposed changes are improvements to the park’s two baseball diamonds; the addition of a pollinator garden with educational signage; increased ADA-accessibility, including the relocation and replacement of a drinking fountain; a new outdoor shelter east of the playground; and an outdoor fitness area.

Blood added another area that would be improved under the proposal is the tot lot, a playground attached to the Community Recreation Center that is primarily used by preschoolers during the school year.

The proposed budget for the improvements is approximately $1.6 million. That number, however, does not include improvements for the tennis courts.

Currently, the courts are designed to enable both tennis and pickleball. Blood said Upland prepared three options for the board to consider. One would be to keep them exclusively for tennis play, another to make them exclusively for pickleball, and the third is to continue allowing both sports to be played but improving the fencing.

Commissioners preferred the option of converting the tennis courts to pickleball.

“I’m at the park every day and I see (the court) used for pickleball every single day,” Commissioner Ali Frazier said. “I think the demand for it in our community is present.”

She later added that the Hibbard Park court “is a very well-known pickleball court at this point.”

The pickleball option would add $322,000 to the project’s budget and does not include an acoustic fence, which commissioners indicated they want included with a pickleball court.

All in, the proposed budget stretched over $2 million, causing commissioners to express concern.

Commissioner Mike Murdock said if the board wants to add pickleball, they should take another proposed change out of the project.

“I’m very concerned about the numbers,” he said. “I’d be comfortable with a $1.5 million project where we think we’re going to recover $500,000 or $600,000. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with a $2.1 million project.”

One concern for commissioners was the stipulation that if they receive the grant, they have to use it for everything that was in the proposal.

Commissioner Patrick Lahey asked Blood if the board decided to remove one of the baseball diamond renovations from the proposal, would it negatively impact their ability to receive the grant.

Blood explained that since baseball is considered recreation, which the Illinois Department of Natural Resources looks for when considering awarding the grant, the number of projects ultimately doesn’t matter.

Kristi Solberg, the park district’s superintendent of parks and planning, said some of the smaller details, such as proposed materials, could be examined to see if there are opportunities to reduce costs further.

“We’re just trying to get direction of how you want us to fine tune these numbers so that we can submit a really good grant application,” she said.

Park District Executive Director Steve Wilson added that the board needs to decide whether to include items that are set to be replaced or repaired regardless of the improvement plan.

“If we take it out, it might provide more flexibility and therefore more justification to take it out, but for someone else it might be, ‘Oh we’re going to have to do it either which way, so let’s do it now,’” he said.

Solberg said she will work on three proposals that cut the budget down and present them at the board’s next committee of the whole meeting on Aug. 26.

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