By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – The village board voted last month in favor of awarding bids totaling $357,136 to Peters Concrete to reconstruct the plaza area between the Cornerstone Community Center and the Ashwaubenon Sports Complex.
Village Manager Allison Swanson said the current design is a “maintenance nightmare” for park and recreation staff.
She said the project would minimize the village’s maintenance in the plaza area for landscaping in the spring, summer and fall and snow removal in winter.
Swanson said the village has worked with the Rettler Corporation to devise a handicapped accessible walkway into the Cornerstone and create a two-lane pass-through with a drop-off lane for easier parking and access by connecting the north and south parking lots.
With the two parking lots currently separated, unsafe conditions have been reported when vehicles jump the curb to drive from one lot to another.
The new design calls for removing the fountain and the stairs and replacing them with a grassed area and a ramp meeting ADA standards.
With the patio area showing signs of wear with concrete cracking and railing rusting, along with work needing to be done with the planters in the plaza, Parks, Recreation and Forestry Director Rex Mehlberg told the board last November it would be best in the long term to “basically blow this thing up and build it the way it should have been done in the first place.”
Swanson said the two alternate bids for the project include $9,239 added for using sodding instead of seeding, because the slope creates challenges for grass to grow without washouts.
It also includes $1,683 for a traffic table as an additional safety measure at the pedestrian walk-through area to raise the roadway where pedestrians would pass from the plaza to toward the softball complex.
Funds for the project have been earmarked from Tax Incremental Financing District No. 4.