By Per Peterson
Tracy’s Parks Committee met again last week in an effort to come up with a refined concept for a new-look Central Park. And while ideas that have been agreed upon were confirmed, the group held off on final master plan decisions until they were given a chance to go over estimated costs of different phases on the long-term plan.
Last Thursday’s meeting concluded with Tracy City Administrator Erik Hansen handing out newly-received cost estimates from ISG to committee members. Another meeting was set for Feb. 10, at which time the group will have had time to deal with the “sticker shock” from last week’s presentation and study the numbers in order to move forward with the master plan.
ISG’s Mo Convery shared a number of estimated costs for various aspects of the committee’s wishes for Central Park that it has shared with her. With that information in hand, she was able to provide some estimated costs to give committee members an idea of what’s in store, price-wise in what she called a long-term planning process.
The full site proposed improvement, based on total square footage, was estimated at $130,000. That price includes new curb work, new parking stalls on 2nd St., regrading of existing parking stalls, parking striping, crosswalk striping, an irrigation system and new lighting. That number does not include an upgrade to the park’s electrical system or work on the bandshell.
Also included as part of ISG’s proposed full site improvement plan is $263,060 for new concrete for all the proposed pathways in the park, for a total of an estimated $393,060 in full site proposed improvements.
“Prices are all over the map right now; this is our best guess for what these things will cost, but they’re really good for planning purposes,” Convery said.
There was much discussion last week about the width of new concrete pathways throughout the park. Convery recommended nothing less than 8 feet in width and at a thicker grade, so larger crowds can be accommodated, with a 15-foot width for an “art walk” arch on the south edge of the park. That pavement for the arch alone would run about $90,000. Under the plan, any art on display would be off the path itself.
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.