With demolition of Pioneer Frontier playground completed, construction of a new version of the popular mid-town recreation area will get underway, officials said earlier this week.

City Manager Chris Dorsey told East Ridge News Online in an email that the playground equipment installation will begin “around the middle/end of May.”

According to Dorsey, the new $1 million playground and splash pad will be built concurrently. First, though, the East Ridge City Council will pass a measure recommended by staff that $82,511 be allocated for the instillation of utilities associated with the facility. Staff is recommending a company called Integrated Builds will get the contract for the job.

It is anticipated that the utility installation would occur between May 17 and June 11.

Dorsey said a company called Water Odyssey will build the splash pad itself.

The playground will be installed by Game Time and Cunningham Recreation.

“It is hopeful with cooperation from the weather, that the playground will be completed some time in July and the splash pad completed by Labor Day,” Dorsey wrote in an email. “I’d love to have the playground done by July 4th, but we’ll see.”

Dorsey explained the $1 million price tag for the project will be covered by a $500,000 grant from the state’s Local Parks and Recreation Fund. The city would have to match that amount. The money would come from the city’s “fund balance.”

Dorsey said the $500,000 is a “budgeted planned use of fund balance.”

That’s about half of what the city is drawing from the fund balance this year, $976,000, to balance the fiscal year budget.

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No Clear Answer on When Pioneer Frontier Construction May Begin