Oswego Park Board Approves Several Projects for Prairie Point Community Park

Chances are, especially if you have a kid in baseball, softball or soccer, you’ve at some point made it out to Prairie Point Community Park in Oswego.

The park, located between Grove and Plainfield roads near Prairie Point Elementary, is what Oswegoland Park District executive director Rich Zielke called the “crown jewel” of many of the parks dotting Oswego.

And now the park is getting some improvements to make it even better.

“There’s a lot of activity that can take place there,” said Zielke, citing the baseball and soccer fields, splash pad and skate park. “The programs that are using those ballfields are just growing and growing.”

As such, the board approved in a vote 4-0 to award Oswego based Utility Dynamics Corp. a contract to install the second phase of the lighting to the fields.

Zielke explained that the Park District installed lights on two of the four baseball fields last year and wanted to upgrade the remaining two fields.The base bid amount is $238,000.

The board also approved a motion to award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder to install a park ballfield fencing and warning track.

The park will also be getting a brand new paved lot instead of the gravel lot that has been in place for years.

“We have excellent facilities out there, but then we have a gravel parking lot,” said board president Bob Mattingly. “We lose parking spots because they’re not lined, and it’s just really dusty and dirty.”

Zielke said the project was expensive – the contract total is listed at $154,550 – but said it was a needed expense due to safety and the pot holes that form in the gravel.

Originally the cost to repave both lots, one at the Grove Road entrance and the other off of Plainfield Road, would be around $300,000 but the price is actually just about half that.

The paving project will result in 300 spots total between the two lots.

“Prairie Point is a great boon for our community,” said Mattingly. “I don’t know what we’d do without all these soccer fields and baseball fields.”

Funding will be taken from the recreation fund, where Zielke said there were reserve funds for projects of this nature.