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Park board leans toward smaller Westwood Park layout after engineer estimate tops $300,000
Summary
City parks staff presented two layouts for Westwood Park courts and a preliminary engineer estimate that places Option A between about $260,000 and $310,000; board members favored Option A pending utility and soil checks and a June site visit.
Jerome, the parks staff member presenting to the Park Advisory Board, described two layout options for new courts at Westwood Park and gave a preliminary engineer27s cost estimate that put the lower-cost design in the mid-to-high hundreds of thousands.
Option A would place a half basketball court and a combined tennis/pickleball court on the park27s west-side lots, with fencing between courts, a concrete walk-up and an infiltration pond to manage stormwater. Option B would place full-size basketball and tennis/pickleball courts side-by-side, but Jerome said that arrangement would require more asphalt, additional access gates and extra coordination with watershed and utility work.
Jerome told the board the line-item engineer estimate for Option A included site work (removal, grading and new asphalt) of about $169,605, fencing and court hardware of roughly $77,344 and turf re-establishment around $10,700. With a contingency Jerome explained as between 10% and 20%, the total preliminary range is roughly $260,000 to $310,000 depending on how much contingency is included and on market volatility for materials and fuel. He said Option B is likely 25%–30% more because of added asphalt, about $70,000–$90,000 extra in preliminary figures.
A committee member responded that "at over 300 k is kind of a hard pill to swallow," noting the scope (a tennis/pickleball court and a half basketball court) and asking whether specifications such as fence height might be reduced to lower cost. Jerome said the team could look at lowering fence heights on the basketball area, adjust fencing footprints, and that final cost will depend on bids; he emphasized the estimate is preliminary and that actual contractor bids could be higher or lower.
Board members also raised site constraints: several said they preferred Option A because it keeps courts farther from where electrical lines are expected to be buried and therefore reduces the chance of future utility work requiring courts to be ripped up. Jerome said staff will coordinate with the watershed and utility owners to map buried lines, check soils for peat or other problem layers, and determine whether regrading or additional drainage work will be required.
The board directed staff to continue site investigations and noted a June park tour to view the site in person; a formal recommendation to the city council would come after additional checks and likely in late summer or early fall.
Provenance: Staff presentation and Q&A about options, costs, utilities and schedule (topic intro: SEG 047; topic finish: SEG 731).
