- Credibility:
NORTH CENTER — Revere Park is getting a host of improvements to its field house and other facilities, construction that will cause some closures in the Irving Park Road park but provide more accessibility when completed.
Construction is now underway, with a goal of completing the work by November 2021.
The field house at 2509 W. Irving Park Road., designed by Clarence Hatzfeld and first dedicated in 1931, needed infrastructure improvements and accessible features for people with disabilities.
The Chicago Park District requested $1.5 million in TIF funds for the work, which Ald. Matt Martin (47th) agreed to in January.
“There’s two phases of this project. There’s improvements to the field house and improvements to the Boys and Girls Club house,” said Tiffany Sostrin, the Park District’s director of legislative and community affairs.Â
Improvements to the field house include a new accessible entrance with an elevator and stairs, masonry and concrete restoration, window and doors replacements, a new roof and gutters, exterior drainage system repairs, plumbing repairs and HVAC improvements and electrical upgrades.Â
Credit: alex v. hernandez/block club chicago“We have a limited amount of environmental abatement. It’s nothing serious, but there seems to be a small amount of asbestos in the building,” Sostrin said.
Accessibility upgrades will also be installed in the park’s washrooms, gyms and bleachers.Â
The park will also have a new Dumpster enclosure, an enlarged landscaped island for parking lot traffic safety and new asphalt paving south of the field house.
“We’ve heard some concerns about traffic safety. It seems like a lot of people were driving around the parking lot in a way that didn’t quite make sense,” Sostrin said. “We’re adding in a new landscape island to improve parking lot traffic safety so that people are now entering and exiting the parking lot through the appropriate egress.”
In addition to the field house and park, the Boys and Girls Clubhouse will also be getting new windows and doors, tuckpointing, roof repairs, environmental abatement, a new HVAC system and electrical upgrades.
Park and field house construction is expected to be done by November 2021. The park will remain open during the construction with the exception of the baseball field on the northwest side of the park and the field house where crews are working.Â
The Boys And Girls Clubhouse will also remain closed during construction but will open before the field house does in January, Sostrin said.
“We just thought it was safer to not have people in the building during this time. The parks programs have shifted to other areas since there will be no access of the field house itself during construction,” she said. “The clubhouse will reopen much, much sooner because that project is much smaller.”
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.
Already subscribe? Click here to support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
