The Parks and Recreation Committee met 12/12/2022. One of the items they took up was a request to award a sole source contract to ISG for design services for Lundgaard Park in the amount of $297,420 with a design contingency of $25,000 for a total contract not to exceed $322,420. This item was approved unanimously.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the full discussion:
Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza told the committee that the city had hired ISG to do the preliminary planning for the park design. There are also plans to raise funds through the park through private donations, and ISG helped create the donation website. Both the city and the fire department were impressed with ISG which was why they went ahead and offered this contract to ISG as a sole source contract rather than seeking quotes from other companies.
Beyond that, Director Gazza noted that typically the city would issue just one contract for the entire design of a park. In this case, ISG had initially be hired only to do the master plan for Lundgaard Park, but the city would like to continue working with them rather than starting over with a new company.
This contract would only cover the site work, utility work, and initial design of the courts, the playground, and some of the site amenities. It would not, however, cover the pavilion. If the money was secured to build the facility, then an additional contract would be entered into for that.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) asked if this contract would fund the design for everything in the park but the pavilion. Director Gazza said it would not cover the pavilion nor would it cover the splash pad that was associated with the pavilion. Additionally, the park was going to feature a monument. The design contract would cover the base for the monument, but the monument itself was something that a specific designer would work on. So, overall, the contract covered the design for everything in the park (including the courts and walking trails) with the exception of the pavilion, the splash pad, and the monument, but it would cover the base of the monument.
The city had budgeted $2 million in the 2023 budget for this park which they believed would cover the design and construction of all the elements covered by this contract.
They were working on securing donations to fund the rest of the park. They had reached out to major donors and received some verbal commitments but nothing was finalized yet. They did not know how much more beyond the $2 million they would need to complete the park.
Alderperson Schultz asked if Director Gazza had an estimate of how much it would take to complete the entire park, and Director Gazza responded around $4.5 million to $5 million.
They were going to kick off their fundraising efforts sometime in the next few weeks. I checked with Director Gazza and, as of 12/21/2022, the fundraising website was still not live. I’ll post again when it becomes available.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1064885&GUID=23157F67-0079-435B-BD93-2236F2BF0F43
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