Arlington Hts. increases budget $17,000 for turf at Melas Park
The installation of new synthetic field turf on the baseball and softball fields at Melas Park will cost roughly $17,000 more than originally calculated. The reason is a drainage pipe that the contractors discovered as construction crews started to dig up the ground.
The Arlington Heights Park District Board agreed to raise the budget by the necessary $17,556 to reroute the pipe through a so-called emergency change order at its meeting Tuesday night. The extra work will not cause a delay in the installation, said Steve Scholten, the park district’s executive director. The installation started in July and is scheduled to be finished in October.
The pipe was discovered about two weeks ago, said Scholten, as contractors dug up the ground.
“Nobody was aware of that pipe,” he said.
The fields are on land owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which provided drawings to the park district prior to installation. However, those drawings did not show the pipe.
“We happened to get the wrong set of drawings,” Scholten said.
“If that would have been discovered up front, that cost would have been included in the budget,” said Jim Glueckert, director of Recreation and Facilities at the park district. The budget for installing synthetic turf was just over $1 million, with the money coming from the recreation fund’s capital projects budget.
When the installation is completed, the infields on all four baseball and softball fields will have sewer and drainage systems underneath. That will allow more games to be played as less games will have to be rescheduled due to rain.