NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver came to the Lower East Side yesterday to celebrate the official reopening of the Lions Gate Soccer Field at Sara D. Roosevelt Park.
Thanks to a pilot program in which the agency handles projects in-house, new artificial turf was installed for $135,000. From inception to completion, the rehab took 7 months. Now that might seem like a long time and a lot of money. But it’s not usually how these types of projects go; they’re normally measured in years rather than months and in millions of dollars of tough-to-secure capital funding.
Before a brief ribbon cutting ceremony, Silver said the Parks Department is committed to finishing renovation jobs more quickly. Oftentimes, the process becomes painfully slow because major projects are subject to competitive bids from outside contractors.
City Council member Margaret Chin, State Sen. Daniel Squadron, Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer and K Webster of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition joined the commissioner. They all expressed strong support for the new fast-track approach.
Lions Gate Soccer Field is located between Grand and Broome streets. The turf had not been replaced in about 15 years.
