When Brookfield village officials gathered at Jaycee/Ehlert Park in September to christen a newly renovated part of the park, they pledged that it would be ready for use in the spring of 2009.
Now, residents are being asked to be patient as the village tries to whip those fields into shape. After briefly being open in April, the new soccer and ball fields on the east side of Ehlert Park have been off limits and will remain that way for at least another week.
“Back in April, we let people use them and it rained and they destroyed the fields,” said Public Works Director William Heider. “We closed them off and put seed down and fertilizer. Hopefully by the week of June 23, they should be open then.”
A 5.67 acre area in the northeast corner of Ehlert Park was overhauled in 2008 as part of a $1.1 million project to convert it from an empty lot into ballfields. The village purchased the land from School District 103 in 2004 for $2.15 million. Of the total cost to purchase and renovate the property, Brookfield received just over $1 million in federal open space land grants.
Officials cut the ribbon on the still-unfinished park on Sept. 20, 2008. At the time, Village Planner Meena Beyers said that the fields would be reseeded in the spring, but that they would be ready for use by then.
The question now is, just when will the fields be ready for use? There are two separate fields in the improved area. One, a full-size soccer field fronting Sunnyside Avenue, is in better condition than the multi-use field to the east.
Plastic netting laid when the soccer field was seeded last fall is coming up in some areas, and there are some bare spots, but the grass appears to be growing pretty well there. But the rainy spring has prevented even the soccer field from being used.
“We didn’t want to pull the matting off, because it pulls the grass with it,” said Assistant Village Manager Keith Sbiral.
As for the multi-use field, the grass has not taken well there, and it is covered in clover and crabgrass. Workers have overseeded that area to try to get a more traditional grass field, but getting that kind of surface may take awhile.
And once the seed does take, Sbiral said he wants to make sure the surface is dry before opening the fields for play. Allowing play when the field remains saturated will only ruin them.
“It’s a matter of the wetness and the seed taking,” Sbiral said. “We thought we’d give it until early June, but it’s been raining every other day.”
Sbiral said that the village has also cordoned off the bioswale – the depressed area used for drainage near at the corner of Shields and Sunnyside – after a mowing crew cut the grass there two weeks ago.
The bioswale, when mature will appear to be a tall-grass wetlands area. Plugs of those plants have been planted and need time to grow.
“We’re confident it’s going to take,” said Sbiral, “but it will take awhile until it eventually gets to be what it’s going to be. The plants haven’t established themselves yet.”