Construction Update or "When will the Park be finished?"

[Sibelius Square]

After making a request to the City, this Wednesday, March 7, the Sibelius Square Working Group took a walk through the construction site at Jean Sibelius Square.  While the delays have been frustrating for everyone who uses the Park on a regular basis, it was evident during our "walk-through" that George, head of construction, and Dan, the City Parks Manager, are taking care to ensure that the Park redesign is done well.
 
Initially, the Park was slated to be open by the end of November 2011.   There were some delays with the building of the field house due to material back orders.  Now, we are at the beginning of March and wondering, "When will the Park be done?"  The building is nearly complete and the big delay at this point is with the landscaping.  The entire Park will need sodding which is not available until May.  There is no point putting sod down if people are going to walk on the sod so, the sod will go down in May and with cooperation from the weather, the plan is to have the Park ready for an early June opening. 

I know there will be a huge amount of disappointment with this late start date, but there is not much that can be done about this since sodding and landscaping are a very important aspect of the Park design and unfortunately, the gardening month in Toronto is May.