The LCUSD Governing Board unanimously approved the bid for Palm Crest Elementary School playground redesign at its April 18 meeting.
“This is the first elementary field and playground that LCUSD has designed, upgraded and modernized in conjunction with the new construction and classroom modernization that we’ve undergone at Palm Crest,” said Superintendent Wendy Sinnette.
The contract is for a lump sum of $897,000, and funds will come from Measure LCF. The work is scheduled to be completed during the summer break in conjunction with other improvements taking place at the site.
“The field will be renovated to allow a little more square footage on the perimeter, as well as benches — this will mimic LCE’s baseball field,” Melissa Greenwood, the district’s assistant superintendent of business and operations, told the Outlook Valley Sun. “We will be slurring and updating the asphalt as well. There will be two new basketball courts, handball, tetherball and a track (striped) along the perimeter. The play structure will be brand-new and a new protective surface/astroturf will be installed below.”
Greenwood told the Outlook Valley Sun that the PTA has raised $50,000 to contribute to the play structure costs.
“When we worked on the design, the district worked with the site as well as the PTA and community users to meet needs,” Greenwood said.
“In terms of benefit to our students, it’s a complete redesign of the playground. There is more play surface on the field. … So, we’ll be able to have the same number of ball walls, same square footage in terms of asphalt, so they did a nice job of making it a win-win [by] expanding the field surface but also maintaining and augmenting all of the playground asphalt surface that many of our younger students really enjoy,” said Sinnette.
Sinnette told the board that when future items hit the $1 million mark, they will refrain from putting them on the consent calendar to be transparent, since this bid request was on it previously.
“So, this isn’t just putting the field back into the condition it was after they took the portables off? This is actually a number of improvements to the field and playground area?” asked Board member Dan Jeffries.
Sinnette responded by saying that this project is the whole total upgrade and redesign of the playground. This includes the asphalt, the activities that are done on the asphalt, slight expansion of the play field and improvements that go with the play field, like shaded areas, seating and the newly redone backstop.
“I was able to, with a little digging, after I started looking into it, to find a lot of detailed information on this project in the bid opportunities website, that has detailed drawings of what this is going to be and a lot of information. So, that was very helpful,” said Board Vice President Josh Epstein.
To view the bid, visit lcusd.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=328730&type=d&pREC_ID=774486.
First published in the May 4 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
