ROCHELLE — At its monthly meeting Monday, the Flagg-Rochelle Community Park District Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a bid from Martin & Company Excavating for the removal of the competition track at Helms Field for $137,031.

The park district received three other bids for the work and the Martin bid was the lowest. Other bids were $195,700, $248,596 and $252,585. The work will include the removal of the existing track, jump pits and related fencing and the filling in of the areas with rock, dirt and seeding. The work will start immediately and be finished by the end of May, Park District Executive Director Jackee Ohlinger said.

"The intent is for it to have early seeding for it to be able to be used later in the summer and fall for Rochelle Junior Tackle as best we can," Ohlinger said.

The awarded bid does include alternate numbers for the removal of more fencing from the interior part of the park if the park district decides to go in that direction.

Grant

The Helms Field track removal is part of a larger project the park district is moving towards at Helms Park as it is changed to more of a park district use. The grounds were acquired by the park district in 2002 after they were no longer utilized by Rochelle Township High School. The park district's capital committee recently met and talked about larger changes to Helms Park. 

Public meetings have been held recently on the project to solicit feedback. The park district circulated a survey locally on what the community would like to see at the site, which received around 700 responses. 

The concept plan for the site includes the football, baseball and softball fields remaining with continued enhancements, a fitness area on the southern corner of the property near The REC Center, a multi-sport court with a rubber surface for soccer, volleyball and basketball, a universal play space, a skate park on the northeast corner of the property, tennis courts and pickleball courts, a pavilion and restrooms, new parking, batting cages, a walking path and green space. The plans are not yet finalized.

The park district recently submitted an Open Space Lands Acquisition Development (OSLAD) grant application for the project for matching funds of $600,000, but was notified recently that it will not be receiving those funds. Ohlinger has said in the past that the grant funds would impact the project's scope, size, and timeline, but the park district wasn't counting on the funds for the project and would be able to do it without them.

Board President Tim Hayden asked the board Monday to think about priorities and spending for the project after the news of the grant status. In recent years, the park district utilized OSLAD grant funding for its Spring Lake renovation project.

"The board needs to give some thought to what we're going to spend at Helms as an overall budget and what's most important, as we're not going to have the same matching dollars that we had at Spring Lake," Hayden said. "While a bunch of the stuff that we're talking about doing still needs to be done, we need to then maybe decipher through a few of the 'wants' and balance those things out. That will be a topic and think about bringing some feedback on what you think is most important."

Numbers

In 2022, The REC Center saw about 99,800 swipes of members and drop-in users. That number in 2023 increased to about 111,000, Ohlinger said.

"That doesn't include our programs, travel basketball games and practices, Rotary meetings, any fitness classes or swim lessons," Ohlinger said. "That's just member and drop-in usage. That number would be doubled or tripled if you include everything that we do in this building. It was a busy year for us."

In a report presented to the board on Monday, Ohlinger also said that the busiest hours during the week at The REC for member usage are from 7-9 a.m. and from 3-5 p.m.

The REC currently has about 370 fitness-only members and had about 288 last year at this time.