Simmons Park set for $1 mil renovation

One of the Fox Valley Park District's most popular parks is due for a nearly $1 million renovation just as the new Aurora Police Department headquarters opens right across the street.

The park district has been awarded a $400,000 grant from the state department of natural resources for the redevelopment of 40-year-old Simmons Community Park, on the south side of Indian Trail Road, just west of Farnsworth Avenue.

"Simmons has always been one of our most heavily used parks," said Jeff Palmquist, director of planning, development and grants. "With the city building their new police headquarters right across the street, it gives us the opportunity to create a beautiful new entry point to both the park and the city."

Highlights of the planned renovation project include a community playground, large picnic shelter, improved soccer fields and baseball fields, restroom building with utilities, a new permeable paver parking lot with a 70-car capacity, a bioswale and rain garden detention area and an asphalt trail system.

"By incorporating these well-designed upgrades, we're adding community park elements that will continue to make Simmons a hub of activity for many years to come," Palmquist said. "We lacked a playground and a picnic shelter so now we have those elements to supplement the other activities that happen as a result of the organized games that are played there."

Palmquist expects the overhaul of the 28.8 acre park to cost just less than $1 million, but said $400,000 is the maximum amount for this type grant.

The park district will go out for bid this summer and begin construction in the fall. If that schedule continues, Palmquist said the park should be complete by early next summer.