Nuts & Bolts: July 2023

Nuts & Bolts: July 2023

There’s a full schedule of essential work completed each day across our Wilmette Park District parks and facilities. Between maintenance, seasonal upkeep and general improvements, you may not catch all the exciting things – big and small – that our crews are responsible for. Nuts & Bolts is here to help you brush up on the behind-the-scenes activity around the District.

Parks & Planning Updates:

The end of June checked off a few milestones for the Wilmette Platform Tennis Club Court and Hut Expansion Project. Concrete was poured along the west sidewalk and curb near the playground, and around the main electrical pipe. The paddle hut is starting to come together – window installation began on June 29, and the basement footers were prepped and poured on June 30.

Over June our Parks and Planning crew was busy at the Lakeview Center Renovation Project working on interior and exterior railings, and installing glass within the interior doors. A final inspection with the Village of Wilmette was completed on June 30.

Some of you may have already paid a visit to the Lakeview Center during the July 3^rd festivities! Our Parks and Planning crew doubled down and worked extra hard to meet permit requirements for partial occupancy by July 3. Thanks to their effort, we were able to open the Lakeview restroom facilities for public use and give visitors a sneak peek at what’s to come.

If you visited Mallinckrodt Park in July and parked in the Elmwood Ave. parking lot, you’ll have been greeted with a nice, smooth surface. Our Parks and Planning crew sealcoated the north parking lot off of Elmwood Ave. and it’s looking fresh!

Congrats to the Wilmette Park District‘s Parks and Planning department on another sustainability green star! The Park District was recently accepted into the B20 Club of Illinois. B20 is a biodiesel blend that Parks and Planning uses to fuel their fleet during the temperate months from spring to fall. B20 is a unique, eco-friendly fuel that contains 20% of new and used oils, animal fats or restaurant grease, and is known to decrease greenhouse gases and burn cleaner! During winter months the Park District must use a lower blend to prevent the fuel from freezing.

Field Permits:

Let the games begin! Summer field permits are booked up with a variety of athletics from June through early August.

Community Playfields is hosting Wilmette Wings soccer on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Wilmette Baseball is traveling around Hibbard Park, Howard Park & Community Playfields.
All four Howard Park fields will be bustling with youth softball on Mondays and Thursdays.
Due to summer turf work at Community Playfields, Summer Jr. Trevian lacrosse was moved to West Park on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
In June, the Loyola football team was temporarily practicing at West Park while their track was being resurfaced.

Parks & Building Staff:

Between tree and shrub trimming, and bed plantings, Parks crews also performed removals of previously identified dead trees. The fence at Langdon was due for repair; a project also completed by the Parks crew last month.

A shiny new ice maker was installed by our Building crew in the basement of Lakeview Center – just in time for our July 3^rd festivities! If you enjoyed a cool water bottle or chilled adult beverage at the Yankee Doodle Dash, it was courtesy of the new ice maker.

You can thank our Building crew for keeping the fun slipping and sliding at Centennial Pools! A new motor was installed on the drop slide, keeping the flow of water running and guiding visitors down the slide and into the pool below.

June is an extra busy month for both our Parks and Building crews. On top of their regular maintenance and repair work, they hustle to put in hours of extensive behind-the-scenes work for our July 3^rd festivities! It’s a colossal job to prep the parks, set up AND break down the event sites for the Yankee Doodle Dash, Star Spangled Splash and Fun and Fireworks events, all in a period of about forty-eight hours. July 3^rd is an all-hands-on-deck day at the Wilmette Park District, and, while they may not be the ones to blow the starting whistle, blast a confetti cannon or launch fireworks, none of it would happen without our amazing Parks and Buildings crews. Let’s give them a round of applause for anther terrific year!