La Grange Park’s Community Park District plans to build pickleball courts and a new outdoor fitness area this summer, with equipment that will be available free from dawn to 10 p.m.
“This couldn’t come at a better time,” said Jessica Cannaday, the Community Park District executive director. “With COVID, outdoor fitness is essential.”
Workers are scheduled to break ground April 1 in an area of Memorial Park, just behind the La Grange Park Library at La Grange Road and Oak Avenue.
The National Fitness Campaign contacted the park district and encouraged the agency to apply for a grant, Cannaday said. To promote healthy communities, the fitness campaign designs outdoor fitness courts where people can get a free workout on steps, blocks and slant boards by leveraging their own body weight.
The campaign awarded the Community Park District a grant of $30,000, she said.
The area targeted for improvement in Memorial Park, which lies west of Sherwood Road between Oak and Woodlawn avenues, currently has two tennis courts and a paved area used in years past for inline skating, but which has fallen into disrepair.
In addition to the fitness court, the park district plans to build three pickleball courts and a play area for young children, and resurface the tennis courts in the 5-acre park.
Since Cannaday started working for the park district in 2019, the most requested park facility was pickleball courts, she said.
The tennis courts already have lights, which also will light the new pickleball courts, which should make them very popular, Cannady said.
The children’s play area will include tether ball, a mini-running track and an octagonal enclosure for ga-ga ball, a game in which players try to avoid being struck by a soft foam ball thrown with one hand by other players.
The idea is parents can bring their children to the park to play where they can keep an eye on them, while they get a workout in, which the fitness campaign calls, the “seven movement, seven minute system.”
A free app was created showing workout routines for fitness levels from beginner to advanced, Cannaday said. The app adds a social element, challenging users and holding them accountable for completing their workouts, she said.
The improvements are expected to cost a total of about $400,000.
Strive 4 Fitness, a fitness studio that opened last year at 712 E. 31st St., in La Grange Park, has agreed to donate $25,000 to the project, Cannaday said.
La Grange Park also will contribute $25,000 from a TIF fund, Cannaday said. Municipalities can create tax increment financing districts to facilitate economic development or redevelopment in a certain area. Incremental property taxes generated by the new development can be spent on public improvements and infrastructure.
To raise the remaining funds needed, the park district issued $335,000 of general obligation bonds to be paid back over 10 years. The park district also welcomes donations to its capital fund to pay for fencing, native plantings and other landscape improvements.
Construction is scheduled to start in the spring and the new amenities are expected to be ready for use in July, Cannaday said.
For more information or to donate, look at the park district website, communityparkdistrict.org.
