Forest Park ideas to be presented publicly in February

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:10AM

Following a 15-month study that has involved dozens of residents, the Forest Park Project Board hopes to make its final recommendations for restoring the historic lakefront park to the Lake Forest Historic Preservation Commission and Parks & Recreation Board in February.

Board Chairman Ralph Gesualdo expects a presentation to be made to the Historic Preservation Commission on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and to the Parks and Recreation Board on Thursday, Feb. 23.

“We hope to have the recommendations on our website prior to those meetings” in an ongoing effort to keep the public informed, he said. “Our goal is to eventually get approval from those boards and take the final plan to the City Council” for its final approval of a master plan for Forest Park, Gesualdo said.

The Forest Park Project Board is still working on its final recommendations and went out to the lakefront to view a chalked outline of possible placement of the Ring Road and pedestrian path with landscape architect Stephen Stimson and a group of board members in early January.

From that walk, changes were made, Gesualdo said.

“Things that looked good on paper we realized didn’t work and Stephen realized it, too,” Gesualdo said.

The project board agreed to retain -- but make slight changes to -- the Ring Road. The original plan Stimson created called for complete removal of the road, which drew public outcry.

The project board is recommending, however, that parking off the Ring Road be removed and replaced with a passenger drop-off and short-term vehicle waiting area. Other recommendations are repairing the current belvedere stairs and beach access ramp and recognizing the designation of Forest Park as a Cultural Landscape.

Final decisions

Gesualdo is quick to note that these are recommendations only.

The Forest Park Project Board “is not in any way, shape or form the decision maker,” he said. Final decisions on the master plan rest with the HPC, Parks & Recreation and the City Council, he said.

And public input is high on the list of concerns, Gesualdo said.

He expects another chalk outline of changes recommended at the park before the February presentations so that all elected officials can view them in the park.

“If residents are down there, they can see it, too,” and offer input, Gesualdo said.

“I think some parking should remain there,” Sandy Ganun of Lake Forest said about the final recommendation the project board outlined in a letter to residents dated Jan. 9. “So many people drive down to the lake and back into those spaces” to overlook the lake.

Ganun supports the cultural landscape designation but cautions, “whatever’s done, be very careful,” he said.

While she is still concerned about changes to the park that will not be respectful of O.C. Simonds original plan and slow updates on the group’s website, Rommy Lopat of Lake Forest said the group has made “a lot of progress in a year.”

Lopat believes the most significant hurdles crossed are the recognition that Forest Park is a cultural landscape and that the Ring Road is retained in some form.

“I now have very high hopes historic preservation will provide the framework for this process,” she said.

Gesualdo said the earliest he expects a final plan to be taken to the City Council is March or April. If the City Council approves it, Gesualdo said the group will begin to reach out to citizens who may want to make donations to improve the park.

The group expects to have a budget at the February presentation.

“We’ll be back before these groups prior to starting construction,” he added.

The 10-acre Forest Park is the oldest park in Lake Forest and one of the earliest public parks created in the 19th Century U.S. parks movement. It is in the Lake Forest National Register Historic District and was designated as a park in the 1857 town plan.