Pickleball? Skate park? Pump track? Crystal Lake seeks input on possible park amenities

The Crystal Lake Park District is looking for community input on what updates should be added to Woodscreek Park this year.

The 40-acre park, located near the intersection of Golf Course and Ackman roads, will be getting renovations done on the tennis and basketball courts and sand volleyball court, and a shelter will be replaced. Park Planning and Development Manager Amy Olson estimates renovations to cost over $500,000.

“We’re going to do it right so it lasts as long as possible,” she said. “Ideally, we would like to get 20 to 25 years out of our amenities, if not longer.”

The community input meeting is from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Woodscreek Building, located at 850 Willow Tree Drive. Residents can also provide input in an online park district survey found here: Surveymonkey.com/r/7TRXL82. The survey will be up on the park district’s website for about a week after Wednesday’s meeting, Olson said.

Some considerations park district staff would like input on includes adding pickleball courts, relocating the Lippold skate park to Woodscreek and adding a “pump track.” A pump track is a circular track designated for wheeled “action sports” such as BMX and dirt biking. It’s designed for “pumping” – generating momentum by up and down body movements – instead of pedaling or pushing.

“We want to keep as much green space as possible,” Olson said. “But we’re looking at what we can do to make this park provide some additional amenities that our community wants.”

Park district staff and board members have been considering moving the Lippold skate park as the location is not as easily accessible to children as other parks.

“We don’t want to do it without complete buy-in from the neighbors and the community right in the neighborhood,” Olson said.

Olson aims for the project to go out to bid this summer and start construction in August.

Woodscreek Park has been the location where the Crystal Lake Parks Initiative Foundation aimed to create a ball hockey rink as the first project for the foundation to take on two years ago. But the idea could be lacking community interest. Other communities like Glenview have a hard time filling programs at their ball hockey court, Olson said.

“It is not as popular as they had hoped,” she said. “There’s no leagues around here for that.”

The park district is also in the process of renovating other parks including Woodland Estates, Della Park, Mickey Sund Complex at Lippold Park and creating the new Lakewood Meadows Park.

The park district received a $329,000 grant from the state Open Space Land Acquisition and Development program for Della Park. The playground will be rehabilitated to include an exercise area, seating area, a shade structure, a looped pathway and a bags game area. Construction is expected to start later this year after bids go out this spring, Olson said.

A 10-acre park off Haligus Road, named Lakewood Meadows by a public vote, is expected to be completed by early summer. The park, projected to cost about $4.6 million, will have two playgrounds, pickleball courts, shelters, a splash pad, a basketball court, soccer fields, a hammock area, a pollinator garden and walking trails all are planned for the new park. Multiple grants helped fund the project including a $600,000 grant from OSLAD.

Meanwhile, fencing demolition at the Mickey Sund Complex in Lippold Park is happening now and renovated baseball fields are expected to be finished before tournaments start late spring, Olson said.

Starting in the spring, Woodland Estates Park will get its tennis courts and parking lot rehabilitated and the gazebo replaced with a park shelter.