High price for Rolling Meadows Gateway Park upgrades

Rolling Meadows officials want to spruce up a park that serves as a main entrance to the city, but not at the price contractors are proposing.

Gateway Park, on the northwest corner of Kirchoff and Wilke roads, has trees, shrubs and a walking path. However, since 2013, the city council has talked about adding memorial benches, a bike rack, lighting, a parking lot, and a new electrical sign.

A landscape architect has been designing plans for the park since August, but when bids were opened last month, all eight were far above the $85,000 budgeted. The lowest came in at $150,000.

That doesn't include another $33,000 for the parking lot, and between $14,000 and $27,000 for an electronic message sign (whether an old police station sign is repurposed or not).

"This was so much over budget and if I was thinking of spending that much money, boy we could probably get another cul-de-sac street resurfaced," said Alderman Robert Banger Jr.

The council agreed this week to delay a vote on the park upgrades until prioritizing projects and determining which can be done in-house.