Peru’s Sunset Park awarded $99,800 grant for lights at softball field

Sunset Park in Peru has been awarded another grant, this time through the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency’s Electric Efficiency Program for $99,800 for the installation of money-saving, efficient lights at the softball field.

Sunset Park was awarded a $43,001 grant from GameTime through a program developed in partnership with Illinois Parks and Recreation Association in June 2023, which allowed the city to upgrade the playground equipment, including a rock climber, a slide and tube for kids to go through.

The grant supplemented the almost $150,0000 in upgrades at the park at Second and Henry streets.

After the upgrades, Sunset was awarded the 2023 IPRA Promotes Play Initiative award from the Illinois Parks and Recreation Association.

Mayor Ken Kolowski said the city will continue to pursue grant money as much as possible so it can keep improving the parks in Peru.

“With the addition of the new playground equipment, the new dugouts, the new fencing and the new lighting,” he said. “It will attract more people to utilize Sunset Park. The goal is to add a parking lot just outside the centerfield fence hopefully in 2025.”

IMEA communications and legislative specialist Ellen Woehrmann said in a news release, the new lighting is a Light-Structure System with Total Light Control purchased from Musco Sports Lighting, LLC.

“The system has guaranteed light levels with BallTracker technology - targeted light, optimizing visibility of the ball in play with no glare in the player’s typical line-of-sight,” she said.

Woehrmann said in a news release the system also features a control and monitoring system, providing remote on/off and dimming control, and performance monitoring with 24/7 customer support.

“IMEA’s funding provided 75% of the total funding with the city labor costs accounting for the remainder of the project budget,” she said.

Woehrmann said Peru was eligible for the efficiency program as a municipal member of the IMEA.

Parks and Recreation Director Adam Thorson said he and engineer Eric Carls worked on the grant submission and submitted the grant through Carls office in the fall of 2023.

Thorson said there are no other improvements planned at this time other than the roofs on the dugouts still needed to be completed once the city receives the proposals.

“The city of Peru is impressed with the new lighting and other improvements made,” he said. “We believe the teams playing ball there, primarily Peru Girls Softball will be extremely pleased with the improvements that the city of Peru invested in to improve the look at one of our heavily utilized parks in the summer season.”