SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/69161
Facility&Operations | ByDavid Schroeder Wilderness Park: ILDERNESS PARK IN MONTCLAIR, CA has had a fascinating history of development over the past 100 years. Beginning with citrus groves in the early 1900's followed by a rock, sand and concrete industry from the 1940's to the 1960's, it wasn't until the early 1970's that the site served as a public park. W Conservation District (CBWCD) purchased the park area and current administrative site in the mid 60's from the Hanawalt Rock and Sand Com- pany. Existing park facilities were crude and undeveloped as the layout was a large circular driveway from the past rock and concrete operations. It was used primarily as a bicycle track with patchy turf areas in the middle. The Chino Basin Water Wilderness Park began its tran- sition into a more defined user friendly recreational facility. At this time the CBWCD had the park professionally designed and constructed with an automatic irrigation system and expanded turf areas. A few trees were planted and some existing trees remained. In 2008, the District's Board of Directors set into motion It was not until 1990 that that Wilderness Park be updated to increase active public use with an emphasis in sustainabil- ity and education. Budgets were developed, designs were com- pleted and construction began in 2009. BUDGET AND CONTRACTORS pendent Special District of Cali- fornia and is funded by property The CBWCD is an Inde- Two of the primary goals of the new renovation were to reduce the square footage of the turf area and reduce water use while still providing for low impact recreation. 26 SportsTurf | June 2012 from rocks and sand to "Green Jewel" taxes from its service area of six cities within the Chino Basin Watershed. The District main- tains physical assets and cash re- serves and it was the appropriated reserves that sup- ported the renovation of Wilderness Park. The accepted bid of $115,000 from Bellaire Landscape, Inc. was approved by the Directors and a 6-month timeline was given to finish the project. There were no change orders during the original construction which kept the original bid un- changed. However, additional costs were realized as tree sig- nage and literature were devel- oped and purchased, replacement tees were needed and additional trees were planted. The costs for these items has totaled approximately $10,000. The park layout of turf, paths, mulching areas, benches, waste stations and picnic tables were designed by Claremont Environment Group, Inc. (CEDG). The irrigation system and boulder selections and place- ment were designed by CBWCD staff. The tree selec- tions and placements were se- lected by a team of local arborists, CEDG and CBWCD staff. TURF AND IRRIGATION Two of the primary goals of the new renovation were to re- duce the square footage of the turf area and reduce water use while still providing for low im- pact recreation. The original size of park area of 84,000 square feet was designed down to www.sportsturfonline.com