THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2006
$160,000 Approved For Commons Facelift Design
Along with Target Area II in Park Ridge's Uptown, the "city commons" on the public library site across the street is going to get a facelift.
The city councial moved a streetscape and landscaping project forward Mar. 20 when it awarded a $160,000 contract to the Lakota Group for design and construction coordination. The cost of the entire project has been tentatively estimated by city officials at nearly $1.2 million.
This project will include brick pavers on sidewalks along Prospect and Touhy Avenues; plantings and flowers near Six Corners intersection at Prospect, Touhy, and Northwest Highway; a gateway architectural feature facing Six Corners, and related features.
The work is being financed by a bond issue that the city plans to issue soon, to finance several public improvements in the Uptown redevelopment area. It is tentatively estimated to total nearly $18 million. The library board is contributing $95,000 to the project.
Together with more than $2 million already put into renovation and upgrade work inside and outside the library building, this will increase the city's investment in the library block to nearly $3.5 million in the past two years.
While they supported the commons project, Ald. Jeannie Markech and Don Crampton voted against the Lakota design award because they said the contract should have been bid out to area contractors. A city administrator said a landscape design contract does not have to be competitively bid, according to state law.