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Grand Cornell Parks Update

May 1, 2009

The three parks currently under construction in Grand Cornell are in control of the Developer through an up-fronting agreement requested by them.  In an average year, there is little to no park construction activities until sometime in May as the sites generally do not dry out enough until the beginning of May to facilitate construction. 

Working under Linda Irvine, Manager of Parks and Open Space in the Development Services Commission, the Park Development Coordinator most familiar with the three parks in Grand Cornell is Joseph Ferrara, who is one of the Park Development Coordinators at the Town of Markham.  He may be contacted by email at joeferrara@markham.ca or by phone at 905-477-7000 x2246 should you have any specific questions regarding these three parks.

Design changes requested by residents, required the park design to be revised including revisions that would relocate the playground in a central location among other resident requested design changes.  These changes required the drawing documents to be revised and once the changes were completed, the Developer tendered the work through a tender process and subsequently hired the successful bidder in 2008.

Because of the record wet year that occurred in 2008, construction was delayed in all park construction activities in the Town.  The extremely wet construction season did not allow construction to proceed at the normal pace as we had anticipated in early 2008 with rain that seemed to fall every 3 days. 

Compounding the problem were generally cooler temperatures, in particular in the Spring and Fall, which meant that it took longer for ground conditions to dry up when it did rain.  When there is a continuous cycle of rain as there was in 2008, it takes even longer for the ground to dry out.  2008 was one of those years where we kept getting the rain with a combination of the frequency and temperature that did not allow the sites to dry up sufficiently to permit construction activity to occur as we had hoped.

Some may have noticed a small patch of sod was installed late in 2008 at the northern parkette as the parkette was scheduled to be sodded until soupy ground conditions created by the wet weather prevented the contractor from performing the balance of the works.  We are pressing the Contractor to complete the northern parkette first, followed by the southern parkette, followed by the larger park adjacent the clock tower.

Residents may have noticed there was a large Burr Oak tree cut down in the large park and the remaining large Burr Oaks have been pruned.  The large Burr Oak was cut down to address some safety concerns as the Oak was already in a state of decline.  The remaining Oaks shall be professionally fertilized to ensure their long term survival and the Town is planning on installing some additional new Oaks as a result of the tree that needed to be removed.  Residents may also notice some brick columns shall be partially dismantled and then reconstructed to address issues discovered during a site inspection of the work.  The Town is aware of these issues and the contractor has been instructed to continue with the balance of his works concurrent with the correction of the column deficiencies in an attempt to keep the project moving.

With regard to this year, we met with the contractor in early April in an attempt to advance the project as much as possible.    The Contractor has since provided us with a schedule that indicates a completion date for all three parks by the end of July 2009, weather permitting.  Their schedule further indicates that both of the parkettes are scheduled to be completed some six weeks earlier or around mid June 2009, again weather permitting.  We further understand that the contractor has returned to the site this year in a limited capacity to complete some underground servicing works.  We anticipate full construction activities will resume in May.  We will also be scheduling weekly meetings with the contractor, the landscape architect, and the developer to go over the completed works and to see where it might be possible to accelerate any aspect of construction activities, resolve any problems discovered during the construction process and attempt to see if we can find efficiencies in the work program.

Your help in keeping out of the park sites and keeping the fence in place would be appreciated as the contractor can concentrate on his work rather than spending time reinstating the fence and would also ensure your safety on these three construction sites.

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