The bad news is that the fountain under construction at the Veterans Memorial Circle at Eight Corners in Brookfield will not be completed until sometime late next spring, which means the village’s holiday tree will not be placed at the site this year.
The good news is that there will still be a village tree at Eight Corners when Brookfield ushers in the holiday season when Santa Claus flips the switch to light it up on Dec. 3.
Public Works Director Carl Muell told the Landmark that the tree will be located at Progress Park – the small patch of green that sits on one of the “points” of Eight Corners west of the circle, formed by the intersection of Washington and Broadway avenues.
The unofficial park is actually owned by First National Bank of Brookfield, which gave the village permission to use it to display this year’s tree, Muell said.
“The tree is going to be harvested the week of Nov. 14-18, and it’ll be in the stand and decorated for the Dec. 3 ceremony,” he said.
According to Muell, village officials had contemplated erecting this year’s tree in Kiwanis Park or at Veterans Park, but they went with the traditional Eight Corners location once the bank gave the green light to use Progress Park.
Work to replace the fountain at Veterans Memorial Circle broke ground in August and the underground work, including two new manholes and sewer pipe associated it, turned out to be a large project.
“Because of the geometry of the streets and sewers that enter Veterans Circle, the pipes come into the manholes at various angles, and it has resulted in a fairly large excavation,” said Village Engineer Derek Treichel.
That manhole/sewer work wrapped up in the past couple of weeks and the excavation has been backfilled. The next step, Treichel said, was for the contractor to install the underground vault, which houses the control panel and water pumps for the fountain.
As of last week, that vault was still at the manufacturer where it was being fabricated. The vault ought to be in the ground by later this month. While the fountain and its associated piping is expected to go in next month, it won’t be ready to go live until next spring, when it can be tested and the circle’s landscaping completed.
“It should be operating in May or June of 2023,” Treichel said.
The $650,000 project is being funded in part by $250,000 in state funds made available to Brookfield by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in the state’s 2019 capital bill.
The village’s share of the cost will be funded through the Eight Corners TIF District.
