By Hillary Dickerson, Editor
Courtesy of Galena Gazette
GALENA–Grant Park is getting a make over, thanks to the Galena Foundation and the city of Galena.
During the Monday, Feb. 27 Galena City Council meeting, the council approved four recommendations from the newly-formed Grant Park committee.
For a total cost of $13,500, paid by the Galena Foundation, the park’s fountain will be completely restored.
The contract with White Construction includes repairing the center figurine, walnut blasting all figurines and repainting, sandblasting all surfaces of the fountain to remove paint, repairing all cracks, painting the fountain, replacing plumbing to the figurines to restore the original fan spray pattern and installing a filter on the pump.
The third Galena Foundation project, at a cost of $11,500, will be to reconstruct and plant the landscape beds surrounding the fountain, remove all urns from the fountain (they were not original) and use one of the urns in each of the four landscaped beds around the fountain.
The city crew, for an estimated cost of $200, will remove the plantings in landscape beds that form a diamond shape to the west of the fountain, remove narrow concrete edging and return the landscape beds to grass.
Other work
In addition to the fountain restoration and the gardens around the fountain, the committee, meeting Feb. 17, also talked about other projects that are in the works.
Dan Cole and his crew have been working throughout the winter on tree removal and pruning at the park.
Ken Robb, a committee member, reported that Cole has made considerable progress. There were originally 90 trees in the park, with 21 of those trees recommended for removal. Seventeen of the trees have been removed, and there are 35 trees designated for trimming.
As with any project, there are funding needs. The committee briefly touched upon future plans to raise a minimum of $200,000 to help fund the improvements to the park.
There was discussion about a campaign that would allow donors to honor or memorialize loved ones by donating to specific projects. Plaques would be placed at the site and the donors would be publicly recognized as well.
Plans are also underway to assess the current conditions of the stone Civil War monument and the Grant statue.
The White Construction lift will be used to better assess the condition when the fountain restoration work is taking place.
The next Grant Park committee meeting is scheduled for Friday, March 17 at 10:30 a.m. at city hall.
