Improvements on the grounds of Birch Grove Community Center in Tofte are really taking shape. Cement leading to the timber frame picnic pavilion was poured and its roof was shingled this week. A problem with the grade of the playground area led to a delay in its installation, but Tofte Township Supervisor Alan “D.C.” Olsen hopes that can be done next weekend after the first week of school.
Lots of progress is being made on improvements to the Birch Grove Community Center grounds in Tofte. The picnic pavilion’s timber frame had been erected and shingles were being laid as of the News-Herald’s press time. A bit of a snafu had taken place with the playground equipment, however, which will leave Birch Grove Community School students without the new amenities the first week of school.
Sixty holes spanning 50 feet had been dug in the ground and about eight volunteers were ready to install the new equipment early the morning of Saturday, August 25. At a cost of about $1,500, a representative of GameTime, the company that manufactures the equipment, drove up from the Twin Cities to offer his expertise. When he arrived, he noticed that the grade of the playground was greater than it should have been for proper installation of the equipment. Rather thanhavinga1percentgrade,ithad a 2 percent grade, which would have left some of the equipment too close to the surface of the ground.
Rather than trying to re-grade the area after installing all the equipment and securing it with concrete, a decision was made to forestall the installation and re-grade first. All the holes had to be filled back in to prevent any safety hazards.
Edwin E. Thoreson Inc. had followed the specifications it had been given for grading the area. The design had been drawn up by The Meyer Group, the project’s architectural firm, in April, before the equipment was purchased. Tofte Township Supervisor Alan “D.C.” Olsen, the township board’s Birch Grove liaison, told the Cook County News-Herald he was “a little disappointed” that the manufacturer had not provided specifications on what the grade was supposed to be.
The problem with the grade “seems obvious in hindsight,” Olsen said, “but it wasn’t then.” ORB Management had been hired to oversee the whole project, but neither they nor The Meyer Group caught the mistake. “I would take as much blame on it as ORB or anyone else,” said Olsen. “It was just an honest mistake.”
Olsen expects the re-grading to cost several hundred dollars, which he considers not enough to be worth trying to recoup from any of the professionals involved. They are talking to the manufacturer’s representative about how much it would cost to get him to come back, but they are also looking at trying to find a local professional who could help them do it right. The volunteers all told Olsen to just call them back when the ground was ready and they would come back to install the equipment.
“We won’t make the start of school like we were hoping,” said Olsen. He thought the re-grading could be done as early as August 30, but he was not sure if or when the manufacturer’s representative would be returning. He thought the installation might be done the weekend after Labor Day and would take only one day to complete.
“If that’s the biggest mistake we make on the whole project, we’re doing pretty good,” Olsen said.
Some of the old playground equipment will be used in the Tofte Township park. Some of it was bent when it was removed and has a lot of concrete on the ends, so Olsen did not know if it would be salvageable. The township might put it up for sale, he said.
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