Grant Park Repairs To Cost $266,000 After Lollapalooza
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The damage to Grant Park after this year's Lollapalooza wasn't nearly as bad as the rain-soaked festival three years ago, but repairs to the sod will still take a few weeks to complete.
Chicago Park District officials estimated repairs would cost $266,000, a cost to be borne by C3 Presents, the promoter for Lollapalooza.
Repairs were slated to begin Wednesday at Upper Hutchinson Field, at the south end of the park. Upper and Lower Hutchinson Field sustained the most damage during the festival, largely due to heavy rains on the last day of the three-day festival. The two fields remained fenced off to the public on Wednesday, but the rest of Grant Park was open to the public.
"Each area of the park in need of repair will see a combination of soiling, sodding, seeding and aeration, rototilling, etc.," C3 said in a news release.
The city and C3, along with an independent third-party contractor, assessed the condition of Grant Park before and after Lollapalooza to determine the extent of the damage and what repairs would be needed.
Repairs typically take at least a few weeks to complete, as any new sod that will be put down needs time to take root.
The $260,000 price tag for this year's repairs is far less than 2011, when it took approximately two months to complete $1 million worth of repairs to fields that were wrecked by the combination of three inches of rain and 300,000 people trampling the grass.